In 2007 the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam initiated a conservation and research project on framed pastels by the Swiss artist Jean-Etienne Liotard. For the first time, 21 pastels were unframed and available for documentation, examination and technological analysis. In order to reconstruct both his workshop practice and his palette, materials used by the artist were examined as well as his production process. The first results of this project are presented here with a preliminary palette of colours. Liotard’s working methods were studied – from the supports to the application of colours – and then compared to various sources. The 1762 treatise on parchment making by Jérôme De La Lande, L’art de faire le parchemin, provided very interesting information on vellum support for pastel painting. Apart from the Traité des principes et règles de la peinture (1781) written by Liotard himself, the archives of his only pupil in pastel painting, Princess Karoline Luise von Hessen-Darmstadt, can be considered a unique and direct record of Liotard’s practice.