The President of Rieux in prom dress 

Maurice Quentin de La Tour made this pastel drawing of The President of Rieux in the 1700s. The powdery softness of the pastel medium is crucial here. It allows for subtle gradations of tone, and a hazy, dreamlike effect. Look closely, and you'll see the way the pastel has been built up in layers, creating a delicate surface texture. The ruffles of the dress, for instance, seem almost to float off the surface, and the sheen of the fabric is rendered with remarkable fidelity. The President of Rieux is holding a mask, and it is interesting to consider how La Tour is showing us a person who is both revealed and concealed. But what does the mask conceal? The powdered wigs, silk dresses and elaborate ornamentation of the French aristocracy were potent symbols of wealth and status. However, they obscured the material realities on which they depended: the labor of textile workers, seamstresses, and wigmakers, all of whom were essential to the production of these luxury goods. By using pastel in such a virtuosic way, La Tour invites us to consider the relationship between surface appearance and underlying reality, questioning the very nature of representation itself.