Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800 (review)

M. La Tour ne dégenère pas non plus, Madame; ses Pastels ont toujours un ton ravissant, et cette perfection qui les rend la nature même.

With these words the Chevalier Jean-Florent-Joseph de Neufville de Brunhaubois-Montador enthusiastically reviewed the works of pastellist Maurice-Quentin de la Tour (1704–88) exhibited in the Salon of 1739 (quoted in Jeffares, 642). Chevalier de Brunhaubois-Montador commented on the ravishing and steadfast qualities of La Tour's pastels. These qualities also describe Neil Jeffares' Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800 even as his explicit objectives are more nearly utilitarian. As Jeffares states in his foreword, he has three goals for this publication. First, the reader should be presented with a comprehensive guide to the producers and sitters of pre-nineteenth-century portraits and, in particular, pastels. Second, the dictionary should supplement the limited number and meager quality of reproductions in previous publications, such as Paul Ratouis de Limay's Le Pastel en France au XVIIIème Siècle (1946). And third, a coherent narrative of the pastel genre in its zenith, the eighteenth century, must be provided (10–11). Jeffares accomplishes these intentions in the voluminous Dictionary, which is also characterized by a wide chronological span, a vast geographical range, and accessibility to both the scholar and lay reader.

Because the eighteenth century marked the heyday of pastel, publications about the genre have tended to focus on that century. Jeffares' Dictionary, however, includes entries on earlier important pastellists, including Jean Perréal (1455–1530), who introduced Leonardo da Vinci to pastels, and Nicolas Dumonstier (1612–67), the first painter to be admitted as a pastellist to the Parisian Académie Royale de la peinture et de la sculpture (hereafter the Académie) (15). The Dictionary's survey and individual entries thoroughly explain how the work of seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century artists such as Sir Peter Lely (1618–80), who introduced pastel to England, and Boucher's teacher, François Lemoyne (1688–1737), laid the groundwork for the popularity of pastel during the eighteenth century.

Several factors contributed to the high status of pastel painting in the eighteenth century—a prominence that was recognized by both the masses and professional organizations, such as the Académie. Pastels were quicker and cheaper to produce than oil portraits or history paintings. The majority of eighteenth-century pastellists specialized in portraiture, a genre quite popular with and affordable to the burgeoning middle classes, although the aristocracy also embraced the genre. The rapidly executed pastel portrait, which was often bust-length or smaller, was an attractive alternative to the slower and more staid medium of oil painting. Painterly artistic techniques, such as the sfumato favored by Rosalba Carriera (1675–1757), created the effects of spontaneity and verisimilitude in her portraits. The prolific and international output of Carriera and La Tour, who were accepted into the Académie in 1720 and 1746 respectively, also increased the prestige of pastel. By the mid-eighteenth century pastel, also known as crayon painting, was so popular that the Académie restricted the number of pastellists who could apply for membership (18).

Although the lengthy entries on Carriera and La Tour in the Dictionary reinforce their prominence as pastellists, Jeffares' publication also includes a large number of pastellists who worked outside of France, marking it as the first truly international survey of the genre. The entry on British artist John Russell (1745–1806), author of Elements of Painting in Crayons (1773), balances an analysis of artistic innovations with references to contemporary appreciation. Russell, who became painter to George III in 1790, was the first pastellist to place his subjects against an open background or leafy sky, which likely appealed to the British love of portraiture and landscape. He was described as "Britain's leading pastellist," and Jeffares asserts that while Russell's "development of strong, vibrant colours was probably an important factor in opening British taste to pastel—by making it seem as close to oil painting as...