Algarotti was the leading European art critic and theorist of the mid-18th century, an international celebrity and literary superstar. This portrait was made in 1745 at Venice, where Liotard had been sent by Maria Theresia of Austria and where Algarotti bought his most famous pastel, the Belle chocolatiere for the Elector of Saxony. It was Algarotti’s championing of that work that cemented Liotard’s growing European reputation.