Charles Parrocel (1688–1752), Maler

Charles Parrocel was a French battle painter and draughtsman, son of the more famous Joseph Parrocel, whose work decorating royal apartments and chronicling military campaigns gave him access to the same court circles that La Tour served as portraitist. La Tour's pastel of Parrocel, held at the Musée Antoine-Lécuyer, belongs to the tradition of artist-portraying-artist that runs through the history of French painting, where contemporaries in the same professional world made informal records of each other. Parrocel died in 1752, so La Tour's portrait dates to before that year. As a fellow practitioner, Parrocel would have been particularly attuned to the technical achievement of La Tour's pastel work, giving the sitting an unusual dimension of professional appreciation.

Pastel on paper, with La Tour's characteristic dense layering. Portraying a fellow artist allowed La Tour to forgo the conventional markers of social rank and focus entirely on the sitter's face and informal bearing. The result has a directness and ease that distinguish it from more ceremonial commissions.