LA TOUR, Maurice Quentin de
(b. 1704, Saint-Quentin, d. 1788, Saint-Quentin)

Jean Le Rond d'Alambert

1753
Pastel on blue paper, 56 x 46 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris

Jean le Rond d'Alembert (1717-1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist and philosopher. He was also co-editor with Denis Diderot of the Encyclopédie. D'Alembert's method for the wave equation is named after him.

At the Salon of 1753 de La Tour exhibited eighteen portraits of the most remarkable personalities and minds of that period of the Century of Enlightenment. D'Alambert's portrait was among them.