Benedetto Luti and the Autonomy of Pastel

Mostly unrelated to official portraiture, Benedetto Luti’s pastel heads achieved fame and circulation in early 18th century Europe. In ancient sources they were described as endowed with «tanta forza e bellezza» as to equal oil painting. Pastel was thus not praised for its impalpable and inherent delicacy, but instead for the vivid intensity that made it akin to painting. The present contribution explores this aspect by offering a historical reconstruction of pastel as an intermediate stage in the making of a painting, from the seminal example of Barocci on to the Florentine Seicento, where the pastel accompanied the gestation of pictorial works aimed at rendering the naturale and expressing affetti. In keeping with this heritage, Luti’s pastels often show connections with single details of major oil paintings. However, departing from this tradition, they did not remain at the preparatory stage: they entailed a remarkable degree of formal detail, a rich palette, a preference for lively strokes, and were inserted in individual frames, suggesting that they may have been regarded as complete and autonomous artifacts.