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| Robert Nanteuil Self-portrait 1666 pastel Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence |
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| Joseph Vivien Portrait of a Man ca. 1725 pastel Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
"Although the earliest works of art to make use of pastel were produced in Renaissance Italy, pastel painting proper dates from the seventeenth century. In the Renaissance, pastel was used sparingly, adding highlight or color to drawings usually executed in natural chalks. Over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, pastel was more widely used; no longer restricted to finishing touches, it was employed more liberally by French artists such as Robert Nanteuil (1623-1678) and over larger areas. By the eighteenth century, color, not line, became dominant as pastels moved aesthetically closer to painting. The status of pastel had long been debated: in 1684, Roger de Piles (1635-1704) described it as a type of painting, though one lacking the vitality of oil; in 1690, André Félibien (1619-1695) described pastel as a mode of drawing that had the same effect as painting, but which could not be classed as painting. The eighteenth century, however, proved a turning point for pastel, as Joseph Vivien (1657-1734) became the first artist to be received in the French Académie Royale de Peinture et Sculpture in 1701 as a "painter in pastel."
– from an essay by Francesca Whitlum-Cooper on the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History at the Metropolitan Museum
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| Charles-Antoine Coypel Self-portrait 1734 pastel Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Charles-Antoine Coypel Portrait of Charlotte Philippine de Châtre du Cangé, marquise de Lamure ca. 1732-35 pastel Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts |
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| Charles-Antoine Coypel Portrait of Philippe Coypel and his Wife 1742 pastel Art Institute of Chicago |
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| François Boucher Boy with a Carrot 1738 pastel Art Institute of Chicago |
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| François Le Moyne Head of Bearded Man before 1737 pastel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Maurice Quentin de La Tour Préparation for a Portrait of Louis XV ca. 1745 pastel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Maurice Quentin de La Tour Portrait of Madame Anne-Jeanne Cassanéa de Mondonville, née Boucon ca. 1752 pastel Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Maurice Quentin de La Tour Portrait of Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville 1746-47 pastel Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Jean-Baptiste Perronneau Portrait of a Man ca. 1747-48 pastel Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Jean-Baptiste Perronneau Portrait of a Woman before 1783 pastel Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin Portrait of Madame Chardin 1776 pastel Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun Portrait of Marie Antoinette ca. 1785 pastel Russel-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, Bournemouth |
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| Adélaïde Labille-Guiard Portrait of Marie Gabrielle Capet 1789 pastel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |