Lotz

This portrait of a man identified only as Lotz demonstrates Lepère's versatility in pastel, a medium he used less frequently than charcoal and ink but with equal authority. Working in pastel allowed Lepère to combine his draftsmanship with a chromatic richness that his monochrome works could not achieve. The turn of the century date places this work during Lepère's most productive period, when he was simultaneously producing his celebrated Paris street prints and exploring a wider range of subjects and media.

Lepère's pastel portraits are relatively rare compared to his graphic work, and they reveal a different side of his talent: the ability to capture a specific human presence rather than a typical scene. The directness of the medium — pastel applied directly to paper with no underdrawing visible — produces an immediacy that connects Lepère's portraiture to the French pastel tradition of La Tour and Perronneau.

Lotz shows Lepère as a portraitist: observant, direct, and technically assured in a medium he used less often but commanded completely. It is a reminder that the artist who documented Parisian streets was also a close observer of individual human faces.