morgana, chanda and i went to the metropolitan museum of art for our annual summer visit. we had been there on july 4th with greg for the richard serra exhibit, and the guitar heroes' exhibit. so we knew exactly which exhibit we wanted to visit first: pastel portraits, images of 18th century europe. 
pastels became popular to work with in the 1600's. the beginning of the exhibit talked about how they pastels were made and had an example of the work table that the artists would keep their sticks in. the pastels were rolled by hand and were a mixture of pigment, a filler of gypsum, talc or chalk and a liquid binder.
i loved the exhibit particularly for the showing of two women artists: rosalba carriera and elizabeth louisa vigne le brun. the above is by le brun and is a self-portrait of herself in her painting attire.
le brun was the daughter of a minor parisian pastelist. they say she was largely self-taught, (though i'm sure she learned quite a lot from her father). in her early twenties she was summoned to versailles to paint marie antoniette. in 1783 she was admitted to the royal academy of painting and sculpture.
this is chanda's sketch of a painting by le brun.
i sketched part of a work by rosalba carriera, a pastelist who lived in venice from 1673 to 1757. she was celebrated as a miniaturist and is said to be the "inventor" of miniature painting. she liked working on ivory with incredible tiny detail. the above piece is titled "young woman with pearl earrings" and was finished about 1720. it is a pastel on paper and is said to be a "disguised" portrait of a friend or acquaintance represented as spring or flora.
afterwards, we walked to the cafeteria because we were all starving . . we shared the latest pasta dish, ravioli with tomatoes and peppers (still not as good as the goat cheese ravioli they used to have), a green salad, and soup.
they have really good desserts these days, we shared a cannoli and apple strudel!
after the cafeteria we wandered around a little bit . .
til we came to the asian art section . . 
and morgana took some pictures in the japanese garden while chanda and i read our books a little, sitting on the fence . . 
it's very quiet and peaceful and cool in the japanese garden . .
a big contrast to the steps outside when we left to go home.
dinner at home . .
fettuccini alfredo . . 
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