Sleeping old lady with a bible on her lap

This intimate and unusual image—a sleeping old woman with a Bible on her lap, painted on copper around 1760—is one of Liotard's most original compositions. It belongs to the tradition of Dutch genre painting that found dignity and meaning in ordinary domestic subjects, but Liotard's treatment transcends genre painting's usual narrative conventions. The sleeping figure, her devotional reading interrupted by slumber, creates a meditation on age, faith, and the vulnerability of the human body. The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, one of the greatest art museums in the world, holds this as part of its extensive collection of works acquired by the Habsburgs over centuries. The copper support—associated with precious objects and miniatures—gives the image an intimate, jewel-like quality that heightens the tenderness of the subject. Liotard seems to have had genuine affection for elderly female subjects; he painted several with a compassionate directness rare in eighteenth-century European art.

Copper ground with oil paint: the smooth, non-absorbent surface of copper allows Liotard to build up thin, precise layers of paint with maximum control. The sleeping woman's face—relaxed in sleep, its wrinkles redistributed by gravity—presents a unique modelling challenge met through minute observation.