Are antique pastels drawings or paintings?

Both words are used for the same objects. Around a fifth of listings call them drawings and a similar share call them paintings. It reflects the medium more than any real difference. Pastel is a dry stick worked like chalk, but built up it covers like paint, so cataloguers land on either word.

What subjects turn up most often?

Portraits, by a long way. The word appears in 134 of 277 titles, with ladies, young sitters, girls, women and boys recurring. Landscapes come next at around one in nine, and Yorkshire is the most named place. Animals, still lifes, life studies and nudes each form a smaller steady thread.

How old are most antique pastels on the market?

The dated field spans 1800 to 1960. Nineteenth Century is the largest single bucket, though it's a loose label rather than a precise year. Mid-century work forms an equally large block, with the 1960s, 1950s and 1940s all well represented. Eighteenth-century pastels are the scarce end, at 14 listings.

Is a pastel always pure pastel?

Often not. Gouache is named in 16 titles and watercolour in 14, and pastel is regularly combined with charcoal, pencil or chalk. Titles sometimes distinguish chalk pastel from oil pastel, the latter a waxy oil-bound stick giving a different surface. Oil pastel appears rarely.

Why are so few pastels signed?

Signed appears in 44 titles and an explicit date on the work in only 8. Many pastels were studies or informal sittings, never meant to leave the studio as finished exhibition pieces. 'Indistinctly signed' recurs at the lower end of the range. Where no name survives, listings fall back on school attributions or on manner of, circle of and after.

How many antique pastels come up in a year?

Around 35 are listed on Sellingantiques annually, and 81 different dealers have handled them. That spread tells you something. Pastel isn't a specialist's corner of the trade; it arrives through general picture dealers, one or two at a time.

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Antique Pastel

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Dry pigment sticks worked on paper, framed and glazed: pastel was the quick way to catch a face, and portraits are what the category is largely made of.