Maurice Quentin de La Tour and the century of Louis XV

Maurice-Quentin de La Tour left his artistic stamp on the 18th century. As official portrait painter of Louis XV, he raised the art of pastel to its degree of perfection.
On the occasion of the tricentennial of his birth, Saint-Quentin, his native city, toward which he showed great generosity, pays homage to him. For the first time the greatest European specialists, university professors, scientists, members of the Académie Française, gathered in the autumn of 2004 at an international symposium devoted to Maurice-Quentin de la Tour.
It is in this framework that Marc Fumaroli of the Académie Française, chairman of the Maurice-Quentin de La Tour tricentennial sponsorship committee, offers us, with talent, the historical and sociological portrait of the century of Louis XV.