Trompe-l’oeil with Relief Jean-Étienne Liotard

Jean-Etienne Liotard, who worked in many European courts and even for the Sultan, became a leading exponent of rococo portraiture with his pastel portraits. As commissions dwindled in the 1770s, the Swiss master turned his attention to a special subgenre of still life – the trompe l’oeil – producing deceptively realistic images. Depictions like the one shown here, imitating reliefs or sculptures, became popular in French art from the 1730s onwards, under Flemish-Dutch influence. Liotard added to the illusion by painting what he called “translucent pictures” on glass. ln this work, depicting the drunken Silenus with putti, not only the brilliant rendering of the seemingly suspended relief, but even the interplay of real and painted cracks in the glass sheet serve to create illusion.