Enfilade

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

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Now on view at The Getty Center:

Eighteenth-Century Pastel Portraits
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 28 August — 13 October 2018

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.