called the Turk, an eminent painter, was born at Geneva in 1702, and by his father was designed for a merchant; but, by the persuasion of his friends, who observed the genius of the young man, he was permitted to give himself up to the art of painting. He went to Paris in 1725, and in 1738 accompanied the marquis de Puflieux to Rome, who was going ambassador to Naples. At Rome he was taken notice of by the earls of Sandwich and Bessborough, then Lord Duncaanon, who engaged Liotard to go with them on a voyage to Constantinople. There he became acquainted with the late Lord Edgecumbe, and Sir Everard Fawcetter, our ambassador, who persuaded him to come to England, where he stayed two years. In his journey to the Levant he had adopted the eastern habit, and wore it here with a very long beard. It contributed much to the portraits of himself, and some thought to draw customers; but he was really a painter of uncommon merit. After his return to the continent, he married a young wife, and sacrificed his beard to Hymen. He came again to England in 1772, and brought a collection of pictures of different masters, which he sold by auction, and some pieces of glass painted by himself, with surprising effect of light and shade, but a mere curiosity, as it was necessary to darken the room before they could be seen to advantage; he affixed, too, as usual, extravagant prices to them. He stayed here about two years, as in his former journey. He has engraved some Turkish portraits, one of the empress queen and the eldest archduchess in Turkish habits, and the heads of the emperor and empress. He painted admirably well in miniature; and finely in enamel, though he seldom practised it. But he is best known by his works in crayons. His likenesses were as exact as possible, and too like to please those who sat to him; thus he had great business the first year, and very little the second. Devoid of imagination, and one would think of memory, he could render nothing but what he saw before his eyes. Freckles, marks of the smallpox, every thing found its place; not so much from fidelity, as because he could not conceive the absence of any thing that appeared to him. Truth prevailed in all his works, grace in very few or none. Nor was there any ease in his outline; but the stiffness of a bust in all his portraits. Walpole.