Self-portrait with a red cap

The self-portrait with a red cap of 1768 is one of several self-images Liotard made in the later decades of his career, when the distinctive red Phrygian-style cap appears to have been part of his personal iconography. By this date Liotard was sixty-two and had largely abandoned the Turkish dress that had defined his public persona since his return from Constantinople in the 1740s. The red cap, however, retained some of the exotic, non-conformist quality of the Turkish costume, signalling a continued refusal to adopt the conventional dress of a European court painter. The work is held by the Geneva Library, an unusual home for a painting and one that reflects the wide dispersal of Liotard's works through Genevan civic institutions. Oil on canvas was the medium for this more formally finished self-portrait, as opposed to the pastel medium he used for more intimate self-studies.

Oil on canvas, handled with the same tight precision as Liotard's commissioned portraits. The red cap provides the dominant colour accent in an otherwise restrained palette. Facial modelling is achieved through careful tonal gradation rather than expressive brushwork, consistent with his empirical approach.