Woman in Turkish Dress, Seated on a Sofa

Jean-Etienne Liotard was a Swiss painter celebrated for his luminous pastel portraits and his eccentric adoption of Turkish dress after his travels in Constantinople. This portrait of a woman in Turkish dress from around 1751-52 reflects the eighteenth-century European fascination with Ottoman culture known as turquerie. Liotard's pastel technique was so refined that his works were compared to paintings on porcelain.

The pastel over red chalk on parchment achieves extraordinary luminosity and precision, with Liotard's characteristic smooth blending creating surfaces of almost photographic clarity. The elaborate Turkish costume is rendered with meticulous attention to textile patterns and textures.