The Musee du Louvre boasts an exceptional collection of 17th- and 18th-century European pastels. Due to their fragility, there have been scant opportunities to view and learn from these spectacular artworks. This in-depth examination of the collection, reproduced here for the first time in color, delves into their history and how they were created. Produced primarily during the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI, the works-whose beautiful delicacy has been likened to the powder covering the wings of a butterfly-offer insights into society during the period of the Enlightenment. Featured artists include Rosalba Carriera, Maurice Quentin de La Tour, Jean-Baptiste Perronneau, Jean Etienne Liotard, Jean-Marc Nattier, and Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun, as well as lesser-known masters such as Marie-Suzanne Giroust, Adelaide Labille-Guirard, Joseph Bose, and Joseph Ducreux. Distributed for Editions Hazan, Paris Exhibition Schedule: Musee du Louvre, Paris (06/07/18-09/10/18)

Pastels from the eighteenth century are fascinating - due to either their closeness to nature and immediacy or the virtuosity of their execution, but always because of their opulent and fragile quality. The richly illustrated collection guidebook provides information in a compact form about all the works of this genre created between 1700 and 1800 in the Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen. They include more than one dozen masterpieces by Joseph Vivien, Maurice Quentin de La Tour, Rosalba Carriera, and Jean-Etienne Liotard, as well as anonymous works. Introductory essays shed light on aspects connected with art history, the history of the collection, and art technology.

Gabriel de Saint-Aubin (Paris, 1724-1780) was "never seen without a pencil in his hand, intent in sketching all that appeared in front of his eyes." His Livre de Croquis (sketchbook )is a veritable chronicle of Parisian life in the 18th century. Compiled between 1760 and 1778 it contains views of the streets and monuments of the ville lumiere, scenes at the theatre or of a grand ball, portraits of young workers writing, sewing or playing an instrument. Saint-Aubin's minute annotations are deciphered and explained in the commentary volume. The sketchbook, acquired from the heirs of Saint-Aubin, was guarded jealously in a private collection - and was, therefore, almost unknown - until 1941 when it was acquired by the Louvre. It has never before been reproduced in its entirety.