# Portrait of Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne the Younger

- By: Elisabeth Louise Vigée-LeBrun (French, 1755–1842)
- Date: 1774
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: Framed: 58.6 x 51.9 x 5.7 cm (23 1/16 x 20 7/16 x 2 1/4 in.); Unframed: 37.4 x 44.1 cm (14 3/4 x 17 3/8 in.)
- Culture: France
- Credit line: Bequest of Dr. Paul J. Vignos Jr.
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/2011.49)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/cma/2011.49/2011.49_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

This signed portrait reinterprets a well-known pastel by Maurice-Quentin de La Tour of the important French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne the younger (1704–1778). The sculptor, seen toward the end of his life, appears in working garb. His close-cropped grey hair, frank, observant stare, and bemused smile all demonstrate the closeness of the young painter to the elder sculptor. The work also speaks to Vigée-LeBrun’s interest in naturalistic portraiture (as opposed to her more formal, commissioned portraits), and—in the handling of the paint as well as her source image—her debt to pastel painting, her original medium.