Préparation for a Portrait of Louis XV (1710-1774)

This preparatory study for a portrait of Louis XV — a 'préparation' in the technical language of the pastel medium — is a fascinating intermediate object between observation and finished work. La Tour made numerous preparatory studies in which he focused on specific aspects of a composition, often working directly from the sitter, before assembling them into the completed portrait. Louis XV sat for La Tour on several occasions, and the official portrait of the king at the Louvre, completed around 1748, is among the grandest statements of royal portraiture in eighteenth-century France. This Metropolitan Museum preparatory work of 1745 predates the finished version and shows the king at thirty-five, at a moment of relative political and personal stability before the difficulties of the Seven Years' War. Préparations of royal subjects are exceptionally rare survivals, making this one of the most historically significant La Tour works outside France.

Pastel on paper, worked with the concentration and precision appropriate to a study made directly before the royal sitter. Compared to the finished portrait, preparatory works typically show more direct, less smoothed handling, preserving the marks of observation more clearly than the refined final surface.