An Unknown Lady
John Russell (1745-1806)
Date: 1793
Place Made: England
Materials & Techniques: Pastel on paper
Dimensions: 109 cm x 92 cm
Accession Number: The Holburne Museum, 1979.2
Printable Version (opens in a new window)
This is a pastel picture, said to be a portrait of Mary Robinson. She was a beautiful actress and writer nicknamed ‘Perdita’ by her lover, the Prince of Wales, after the best part she ever played. She is listening to a boy singing from a sheet of music in a woodland setting.
It is made of pastel, a fine soft, coloured chalk, laid down on paper. The paper is pasted to a sheet of canvas, nailed to a wooden ‘strainer’ or frame. The glass is kept from pressing on the pastel surface by a ‘fillet’, a thin piece of wood running all the way round the frame between the picture and the glass.
The paper and canvas ‘sandwich’ was laid down flat, the outline sketched in and then the different areas coloured in. Soft areas like the flesh and clouds were rubbed with the fingers. Stronger lines were added to pick out detail.
The picture was probably made in London by John Russell, a well-known pastel artist. He became ‘Crayon Painter to the Prince of Wales’ in 1785. ‘Crayon’ was the 18th-century name for pastels.
In order to help preserve the picture it has been given a new backing.
Teachers' Information
Russell worked in a medium with a long history, stretching back to chalk drawings in the 16th century. The earliest known chalk drawing is Isabella d’Este by Leonardo da Vinci which is actually on cardboard. The first chalks were natural minerals found in the ground. These came in the colours - white, black or ‘sanguine’ (red) and were used for line drawings. The soft rubbed surface we think of as typical of pastel was achieved by a new kind of chalk: pastel. To create a pastel china clay (kaolin) was mixed with gypsum (plaster), then ground into a paste, mixed with pigment and a glue like gum arabic, and rolled into a cylinder. Adding the same pigments as used for oil painting gave a far wider range of colour.
Activities
1. Ask your pupils which part of the picture they think would be most difficult to do? Would it be her face; the child’s book; her frilled neckline; the trees? Why?
2. Natural chalk occurs in the ground in earth colours, but pastels have mineral colours like those used for oil paints added to them to give a wider range. Which colour pastels in this picture do the children think could be found in natural chalks?
3.
What would be the problems involved in looking after a pastel picture?
4. Print this image with a square blanked-out (you can do this on a computer) making sure you use a suitable paper that will take pastels. Ask your pupils to use pastels to colour match the missing square: practice techniques beforehand, such as colour mixing of the relevant colours, rubbing and drawing lines. Finally match the more precise details on top.