A delicate art at its apogee

Associated media

Pastel Portraits: Images of 18th-century Europe

By Katherine Baetjer and Marjorie Shelley

Pastel exhibitions are rare because artworks in this medium (sticks of powdered pigment with a binder) are very delicate, tending to fade if over exposed to light and easily damaged by vibration (resulting in loosening of the powder) – consequently they do not travel well and can be problematic to exhibit. Museums and individual collectors are often, understandably, reluctant to lend pastels from their collections. For this reason these precious and fragile artworks often remain carefully conserved and hidden from the public gaze.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York has owned a modest but important collection of 19th- and 20th-century French and American pastels by Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet and Mary Cassatt since the Havemeyer bequest of 1929, but it only began to purchase pastels at auction in 1956. In 2002 the museum acquired its first pastel portrait by the Venetian artist Rosalba Carriera (1675–1757): Gustavus Hamilton (1710–1746), 2nd Viscount Boyne, in Masquerade Costume. Since then it has bought various 18th-century European pastels, which it exhibited in this show together with works lent by various institutions and private collectors in North America.

Some of the pictures displayed in this exhibition were by renowned practitioners of the medium, including Rosalba Carriera and Jean Baptiste Perronneau, but also represented were artists primarily known for their work in oils: François Boucher (1703–70), Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805), Jean-Baptiste-SiméonChardin (1699–1779), Elisabeth Vigée Lebrun (1755–1842), Anton Raphael Mengs (1728–79) and Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–97). The show was,therefore,trans-European in its scope, covering work from Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland and England, and even included examples of work by the Irish-American practitioner John Singleton Copley (1738–1815). Whilst the fragility of the drawings precluded their lengthy display, this 56-page supplement wonderfully captures these exquisite artworks only fleetingly revealed to those who were privileged to visit the Metropolitan Museum this summer.

The publication consists of a single long essay by Marjorie Shelley, ‘Painting in the Dry Manner: The Flourishing of Pastel in 18th-century Europe’. This covers the various aspects of working in pastel, from its production to the ways in which artists manipulated the medium to achieve desired finishes and methods of making this, often fugitive, material more permanent. There are 48 colour reproductions of the pastel portraits, catalogued and annotated by Katherine Baetjer.

There were many reasons why, by the mid 18th century,drawing in pastel had reached its apogee, including its stylistic diversity and the naturalistic qualities of the medium. Pastels were portable, given that ready-made crayons had been available (in a limited way) from the 1660s and were much more widely obtainable by the early 18th century. In addition, drawing in pastel required little preparation and fewer tools than the execution of oil painting.

Moreover, in the intellectual and cultural climate that characterized the Age of Enlightenment, pastels flourished because of advances in technology in areas such as glass-making and the development of fixatives and supports. The period also saw the publication of technical handbooks and treaties on working in pastel. This, in turn, encouraged crayon drawing amongst amateurs.

The author also focuses on the ways in which various finishes in pastel were achieved. Gouache-like effects were obtained by scraping a crayon, mixing it with a wet vehicle and applying it with a brush to allow the artist to achieve a sense of thickness and textural quality to her/his work, as in Liotard’s Young Woman in a Turkish Costume (c. 1740). Tactile or contrasting impressions could be achieved by varying the pressure of application. The essay is interposed with photographs of portraits made by a number of 18th-century practitioners in pastel,arranged according to the artists’ chronology,beginning with Charles Antoine Coypel (1694–1752) and ending with John Russell (1745–1806).

Although concise,the book is very thorough and would be valuable to anyone interested in the history and technical aspects of drawing and working in this medium. For this reader, the essay felt ‘long’ and would have benefited from the inclusion of sub-headings,but that is a minor quibble.Nonetheless in contrast to the full detail in the body of the essay, the final paragraph on the decline of pastel seemed superficial and could have been more fully explained. Furthermore, given the number of female artists who practised in this genre, it would have been interesting if the author had included some consideration of gender issues. That said, this slender volume is beautifully illustrated and well catalogued and it is a rare pleasure to see the fine reproductions of the pastel portraits that were displayed in the exhibition.

Over 40 pastel portraits from 1711–1801 were displayed at the exhibition,which was hosted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, last summer (17 May – 14 August 2011). This publication is the product of a collaboration between Katherine Baetjer, Curator in the museum’s department of European paintings and Marjorie Shelley, Conservator at the Sherman Fairchild Centre for Works on Paper and Photographs conservation.

Pastel Portraits: Images of 18th-century Europeby Katherine Baetjer and Marjorie Shelleyis published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,  and distributed by Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2011.56 pp., 48 colour illus. ISBN 978-0-300-16981-2