Pastels by 18th - early 20th-century Western European artists from the Hermitage collection

An exhibition of pastels selected from among those belonging to the Hermitage collection of Western European art is a fairly rare event. The reason lies in the very texture of the pastel medium, the fragility of its colour layer and its sensitivity to fluctuations in temperature and the character of lighting. The exhibition features 65 works by French, German, Swedish, Norwegian and Italian artists of the 18th to early 20th centuries who worked in the pastel technique.

The last large exhibition of pastels in the State Hermitage took place thirty years ago. The selection of works for the present exhibition has been made in such a way as to not only present superb individual works, but also to give some sort of general picture of the Hermitage collection and of the technical and stylistic changes introduced into pastel painting by the general course of the history of art.

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At the opening of the exhibition

The first visitors