The World of Interiors

COSTUME DRAMATIST

Top left: the contrast between the Western dress of the French consul in Smyrna and the way he reclines in Eastern style is striking (17 3 8).

Top right: the lady is now identified as Laura Tarsi an acquaintance of Liotard in Constantinople. She was once thought to be the mistress of

the Marquess of Granby (c17 4 1). Above: Richard Pococke was one of the most academically distinguished travellers of the 18th century (17 4 0)

British aristocrats the Hon William Ponsonby Viscount Dun-

cannon and John Montagu Fourth Earl of Sandwich who were

on an extension to the more usual Italian Grand Tour. The three

took up residence in Pera the European part of the city. Their

hedonistic way of life was remarked on by a later traveller: ‘The

pleasures of the table are well understood and frequent and

scarce an evening passes without balls concerts or assemblies

at all of which the intercourse between the

sexes is as easy as can be wished.’

In Pera Liotard painted his two pa-

trons in the splendid Turkish costume that

they had adopted for reasons of both expe-

diency and vanity and a year later he re-

ceived a commission to paint the portrait

of another intrepid traveller and pioneer

archaeologist Richard Pococke whose A

Description of the East and Some Other Countries

did much to increase European know ledge

of the Ottoman empire. Encouraged by

the patronage of the British ambassador

Sir Everard Fawkener and perhaps capi-

talising on a gap in the market left by the

death of another successful European art-

ist working in the Ottoman capital Jean

Baptiste Vanmour Liotard remained in

Constantinople for another four years after

his original patrons continued on their

travels securing commissions for the por-

traits of several European ambassadors.

Quite different from Liotard’s flashy oil paintings of cultur-

ally cross-dressing British aristocrats are a group of remarkable

drawings in black and red chalk depicting members of the cos-

mopolitan community in Pera: women embroidering music-

ians a dwarf as well as grand ladies. Liotard’s relation ship with

these individuals both Turkish and European is not known but

his engagement and empathy with them are apparent. We know

nothing of the stories behind the works

Mad em oiselle Beli or Young Woman of Const-

ant inople: probably Greek or Frank (the

Turkish term for foreigners) they are little

more than children the elaborate costume

with which they are adorned heightening

the vulnerability that Liotard conveys in

their faces. In Maid Serving Tea where later

Orient alist artists would portray the serving

girl as a black slave here we have a white

servant whose demeanour is by no means

subservient to that of her haughty mistress.

The absolute integrity of his portrayal of

these two women without the distortion

of a Western lens creates a palpable sense

of the relationship between them. ‘My

greatest pleasure’ he wrote later ‘is to try

to think purely naturally and without prej-

udice of any kind’ $

‘Jean-Etienne Liotard’ runs at the Royal

Academy of Arts London W1 (020 7300 8000;

royalacademy.org.uk) until 31 Jan

TOP LEFT: MUSEE DU LOUVRE PARIS. PHOTO © RMN-GRAND PALAIS (MUSEE DU LOUVRE)/MICHELE BELLOT. TOP RIGHT: LENT BY THE SYNDICS OF THE FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM CAMBRIDGE. PHOTO © FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM CAMBRIDGE. BOTTOM: MUSEE D’ART ET D’HISTOIRE GENEVA. PHOTO MUSEE D’ART ET D’HISTOIRE GENEVA/BETTINA JACOT-DESCOMBES