Exhibition

Velvet Paintings

This exhibition features nine 18th-century pastels from The Huntington's holdings, which have not been on public view for nearly a decade.
Rosalba Carriera (1675–1757), Girl with a Rabbit, ca. 1720s-1730s, pastel on paper. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.

Rosalba Carriera (1675–1757), Girl with a Rabbit, ca. 1720s-1730s, pastel on paper. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.

This exhibition features nine 18th-century pastels from The Huntington's holdings, which have not been on public view for nearly a decade. Still-sparkling works by masters of the medium such as Rosalba Carriera, Francis Cotes, and William Hoare, brilliantly demonstrate why the late 17th-century French art theorist Roger de Piles called pastel "the most commodious type of painting."