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Portrait of Anne Robert Turgot, Baron of Laulne
Jean Antoine Houdon (French, 1741–1828)
1778
- Medium
- Patinated plaster
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- 84.5 × 55.9 cm (33 1/4 × 22 in.)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Edward E. Ayer Endowment in memory of Charles L. Hutchinson
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Economist Anne Robert Turgot aimed to stabilize France’s financial situation, which had deteriorated during Louis XV’s reign. Some of Turgot’s ideas later influenced economic reforms espoused during the French Revolution, including his efforts to abolish corvée, a system of intermittent forced labor imposed on the peasant class.
In this plaster portrait, Turgot wears a curly wig fashionable for men of the period. A lace jabot—the ruffled ornamentation at the front of the shirt—pokes through his simple vest.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
