Portrait of Anne Robert Turgot, Baron of Laulne (1778): Artwork and History

Portrait of Anne Robert Turgot, Baron of Laulne (1778) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Jean Antoine Houdon (French, 1741–1828).

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the 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.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of Anne Robert Turgot, Baron of Laulne
• Date: 1778
• Artist attribution: Jean Antoine Houdon (French, 1741–1828)
• Place of origin: France
• Medium: Patinated plaster
• Dimensions: 84.5 × 55.9 cm (33 1/4 × 22 in.)
• Type: Sculpture
• Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe
• Reference number: 1962.820

Collection credit

Edward E. Ayer Endowment in memory of Charles L. Hutchinson

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.