Self-portraits by Liotard

As I've mentioned previously, Liotard's time spent in the Ottoman Empire - from 1738 to 1743 - had a profound effect on his work and on his personal appearance. Much of his subsequent work, both genre scenes and portraits, feature European subjects dressed in Turkish attire, and his own very eccentric adoption of Oriental dress and a long beard earned him the nickname le peintre turc - the Turkish painter - as the inscription on the self-portrait below commemorates. (In 1757, at the age of fifty-four, he made a late marriage; his new wife did not appreciate his lavish beard, and he shaved.)

1744.

Circa 1731-33, some years before his visit to Constantinople.

Circa 1744-45.

Circa 1749-51.

Circa 1768.

Circa 1770.

Circa 1773, three years before he returned home to Geneva, where he would spend the rest of his life.

Circa 1782. The artist - at eighty, seven years before his death - has grown back his beard.