Simon Lutrell of Lutrellstown

Simon Luttrell of Lutrellstown was an Irish nobleman, later created Earl of Carhampton, who sat to Liotard during the artist's time in the British Isles or possibly during European travels. The portrait, now in the Kunstmuseum Bern, entered a Swiss collection — a trajectory typical of how aristocratic European portraits circulated through sale and inheritance over the centuries. Luttrell was a controversial figure in Irish political life, and his choice of Liotard as portraitist in 1753 signals his engagement with the cosmopolitan cultural world of mid-century Europe. Liotard at this date was in his prime, recently returned from Vienna and Constantinople and at the height of his continental fame. The canvas medium suggests a formal, lasting portrait rather than a private study, appropriate for a man of Luttrell's social ambitions.

Oil on canvas worked with Liotard's characteristic precision and restrained palette. The flesh tones are built in careful layers with sharp definition around the eyes and jaw. Costume is recorded with documentary fidelity, giving the surface a crystalline quality distinct from the warmer, looser handling of British contemporaries.