Portrait of Maria Frederike van Reede-Athlone at Seven Years of Age (detail), 1755–56, Jean-Étienne Liotard. Pastel on vellum. The J. Paul Getty Museum

Eighteenth-Century Pastel Portraits

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This is a past event


Pastels—dry, satiny colors, manufactured in sticks of every hue—enjoyed a surge in popularity during the eighteenth century, becoming, for a time, the medium of choice for European portraiture. This display of pastels from the permanent collection explores the specific physical properties that made this medium so appealing to eighteenth-century portraitists and their patrons.


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