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In\u00a01720, the original workshop of La Maison du Pastel<\/em>\u00a0started producing its amazing\u00a0pastels. By\u00a0the first world war, there were more than\u00a01000\u00a0colours for artists to choose from. By\u00a01937<\/span>, a dizzying\u00a01650 colours<\/span>\u00a0were on offer, and when they\u00a0were presented at the Exposition Internationale de Paris<\/em>,\u00a0they\u00a0won\u00a0the Gold Medal for excellence<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n These amazing pastels are still made today in the same way \u2013 individually hand-rolled and made with\u00a0exceptionally\u00a0lightfast pigments<\/span>\u00a0and a minimum of binder. Using their unique historic formulas, they\u00a0have\u00a0a slight\u00a0texture which makes their adherence quality excellent, needing no fixative, and they have true\u00a0intense and clear\u00a0colours<\/span>. To date, you will find an\u00a0evolving and expanding collection of 1085 colours (how to choose from such delicious options as rouge carmin, rouge dor\u00e9, rouge capicine, rouge g\u00e9ranium, rouge de venise, rouge brique, rouge grenat \u2026\u00a0fabulous!). E<\/span>ach true colour is used\u00a0to create\u00a0a range of\u00a0nine gradations\u00a0by mixing the\u00a0<\/span>pure colour\u00a0with white,\u00a0black, or\u00a0crossed with another colour. What more could\u00a0a colourist ask for.<\/p>\n But this\u00a0venerable Parisienne\u00a0house of colour has had a complicated\u00a0past, and it is only through the dedication and courage of strong\u00a0women that it is still in existence today. The chemist Louis Pasteur was an amateur pastel artist, and he introduced his former student, Henri\u00a0Roch\u00e9, to the Maison Macle,<\/em> as the company was known then. Henri was\u00a0a chemical engineer, chemist, biologist<\/span>, gold medallist of the “Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de Pharmacie” and of the “\u00c9cole de Pharmacie de Paris”, \u00a0he was also interested in art. However, he now had a personal\u00a0passion. He worked in close collaboration with the old artisan from the Maison Macle<\/em>, who passed down to him the centuries of knowledge embedded in\u00a0the\u00a0traditional skills of perfecting pastels, while on his side, Roch\u00e9 added his own\u00a0scientific processes to the manufacture. Henri bought the company in 1878, renaming it La Maison du Pastel. \u00a0He dedicate himself to producing excellent pastels, increasing\u00a0the range from about\u00a0100 colours\u00a0to\u00a0around 500 colours by 1887. Henri\u00a0looked to the artists of the day \u2013 Degas, Redon, Whistler, Sisley \u2013 for advice in order to perfect not only the qualities of the pastels, but also the choice\u00a0of colours. A box of Henri\u00a0Roch\u00e9 pastels was found in Degas’ studio after his death, and is now in the\u00a0collection of the Mus\u00e9e d’Orsay.<\/p>\n Henri\u00a0Roch\u00e9 had a son, also called Henri,\u00a0and from\u00a01912, Dr. Henri Roch\u00e9<\/span>\u00a0started to divide his time between his own medical practice and his father\u2019s pastel house.\u00a0The younger Henri\u00a0in turn worked with the artists of his time, such as Vuillard, to further perfect the range.\u00a0The\u00a0father and son publish\u00a0Cahiers de l\u2019Artiste<\/em>, a series of pamphlets discussing\u00a0fixating pastels, means of fighting mould and specialist framing techniques. By the eve of the first world war<\/span>, the colours had been increased to\u00a0more than 1000 ‘nuances’<\/span>. But the young\u00a0Dr. Henri Roch\u00e9 was called to fight in the first world war\u00a0between 1914 and 1920, so the activity of the workshop was interrupted.\u00a0In 1925, Henri\u00a0Roch\u00e9 senior died, and his son took over the company completely. In the 1930’s, Henri moved the production out of Paris, to the workshop where the pastels are still made today. However, he kept the shop on Rue Rambuteau in Paris, where they had moved in 1906, which is the shop you can still visit.<\/p>\n Sadly, the second world war also interceded and all production stopped again\u00a0when\u00a0Dr Henri Roch\u00e9 moved his family to greater safety in the South of France. Here, he set up a small laboratory and set about compiling the\u00a0most important salvaged documents. He also\u00a0managed to stay in contact with some of the artists.\u00a0In 1946, when he moved back to Paris, the shop had been looted and occupied by the Germans. Despite his advanced age and ill health, his whole family\u00a0set about revitalising the company, Henri worked as a Doctor to accumulate the money needed, and his wife and three daughters started to manufacture the pastels again. When Henri\u00a0died in 1948, the company was taken over by the four women; his wife and his three young daughters, and when their mother Ren\u00e9e died\u00a0in 1975, the eldest sister, Huberte, a dignified woman with a profound devotion to “her” artists, took over as the head of La Maison du Pastel. None of the three sister ever married. Huberte died in\u00a01999, \u00a0at the age of 85. Denise, a prolific artist in her own right, and her sister Gis\u00e8le took over the company. These two\u00a0inseparable but elderly sisters still \u00a0produced\u00a0a small\u00a0range of pastels, but they were in their eighties and had no direct descendant that they could\u00a0pass on their knowledge and love of pastels to.<\/p>\n However, this story has another champion. They did have a great cousin, Isabelle Roch\u00e9, who at the time was an engineer\u00a0working in the oil industry. Luckily for us, she became fascinated by these magical pastels and decided to dedicate her life to resuscitating the company. This was not an easy task as, by then, they had virtually\u00a0no clients or suppliers. For ten years she learnt from her elderly cousins and absorbed the skill and knowledge that had been passed down through generations. By 2009, Isabelle\u00a0had recreated 567 shades. Meanwhile, in the USA, a young fine art student became a great admirer of the exceptionally rich and luminous colours of the Roch\u00e9 pastel, so much so that she came to France to do a work placement for Isabelle at no cost, offering to do anything to help, even sweeping the floor! Margaret stayed, and since 2010 has done more than sweep the floor. She now researches the pigments and formulates the new colours, as well as working in the shop with Isabelle when it is open on Thursday afternoons. An artist in her own right, Margaret\u00a0has a formidable colour sense and an irresistible\u00a0enthusiasm for La Maison du Pastel.<\/p>\n Isabelle and Margaret make these legendary pastels in the same workshop just outside Paris where Henri moved his family in the 1930’s. In the dusty quiet of the French countryside each precious pastel stick is produced\u00a0by hand using the original techniques that the Maison Macle <\/em>artisans passed down to Henri senior, who passed them onto his son, who taught his wife and\u00a0daughters, and eventually the sisters\u00a0passed on these secrets to Isabelle Roch\u00e9. This is a\u00a0direct line going back to 1720, and the sequence of production has not changed since. D<\/span>ough like slabs\u00a0of intense colour are\u00a0mixed to a precise intensity, then they are pressed\u00a0to get rid of\u00a0the excess moisture, small<\/span>\u00a0balls are weighed and rolled, cut and stamped by hand with\u00a0the historical seal of the house of Roch\u00e9.\u00a0<\/span>The\u00a0pastels are then left\u00a0to dry for up to\u00a0two months before finding their way to artists\u00a0around\u00a0the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n However, Isabelle and Margaret have a mission. They are the keepers, the guardians of the tradition. But they are not standing still. Even though today they have\u00a0colours that you can not find elsewhere, b<\/span>y creating new colours or being\u00a0inspired by their collection of original pastels going back to 1887, they are hoping to recreate 1,650 colours by their\u00a0300th anniversary in 2020.\u00a0This is the number that the house\u00a0had presented to artists back in\u00a01937. I have no doubt that they will succeed\u00a0as they are well on their way.\u00a0However, this type of\u00a0dedication and the creation of perfection\u00a0does not come cheaply. These are not the insipid chalky or sticky “pastels” you can buy today, mass produced in\u00a0garish, fading\u00a0colours that slip off the paper in a dusty mess or\u00a0fuse together to form muddy colours. These dry, slightly grainy Roch\u00e9 sticks, although feeling firm, release the pigment easily.\u00a0The\u00a0luxurious and luscious Roch\u00e9 colours stay pure and separate and true\u00a0to their colour for centuries. They are perfectly\u00a0opaque and respond to a gentle touch, blending beautifully and the\u00a0high pigment concentration means that\u00a0blending gives\u00a0bright results.\u00a0Many artists feel that these utterly gorgeous pastels\u00a0are the best and the most desirable made in the world today. Their lineage tells you they\u00a0are indeed the real thing used by famous artists for hundreds of years (look at the pastel work by Degas for confirmation), and they will transform how you think and feel about working in pastel.<\/p>\n The shop in Paris is open on Thursday afternoon, or by appointment, so search them out\u00a0in the\u00a0small cobbled courtyard at 20\u00a0Rue Rambuteau, in Le Marais, Paris, 75003.<\/p>\n Links:<\/strong><\/p>\n Their face book page is here.<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Boxes](\"http:\/\/delladrees.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/IMG_4154-300x208.jpeg\")
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