Portrait of the Poet Charles-Pierre Colardeau

The French poet Charles-Pierre Colardeau (1732-1776), whose early death cut short a promising career, is portrayed half-length in the foreground of this composition, seated in an armchair. The poet is dressed in a red smock and wears a short powdered wig gathered by a grey ribbon, in the style of the day. The figure spontaneously turns his head, holding in his left hand some sheets of paper from the manuscript Lettre d’H�loise à Ab�lard (Letter from Heloise to Abelard), his best and most well known poem written in 1758, an imitation in verse of the famous work of the same name written in 1716 by Alexander Pope that prefigures 18th-century pre-Romantic sensitivity.

Exhibited at the Parisian Salon of 1771, this work is a fine example of 18th-century French bourgeois portraiture and follows a model that was made popular by a number of painters, among which his famous compatriot Michel van Loo. Far from the affectedness of some portraits, Voiriot granted this work an intimate quality, rendering the figure in a natural way.