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Conté à Paris Crayons and Sets
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Item #: 20201
$1.20 - $62.67
SAVE 21-49% off List!
Square crayons for drawing and sketching. Thinner and harder than traditional pastels. Highest quality, rich vibrant pigments in a fine kaolin clay ba...
$1.20 - $62.67
SAVE 21-49% off List!
+ 13 Options
Conté à Paris Sketching Pencils and Set
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Item #: 20425
$1.91 - $11.30
SAVE 38% off List!
For portraits and landscapes. Round, wood-cased pencils have rich colors, with an abrasive for easier stumping. Sharpen with a razor blade or knife. P...
$1.91 - $11.30
SAVE 38% off List!
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Conté à Paris Pastel Pencils and Sets
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Item #: 20517
$2.35 - $84.91
SAVE 32-44% off List!
Large diameter pencils have very fine, smooth leads, rich in pigment. Produce precise marks or lines on variety of papers. Presence of abrasives provi...
$2.35 - $84.91
SAVE 32-44% off List!
+ 5 Options
Conté à Paris Compressed Charcoal
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Item #: 20044
$37.49 - $40.68
Conté à Paris offers deep black charcoal in round sticks. Boxes of twelve are available in various degrees of hardness, ranging from 4B-very soft to H...
$37.49 - $40.68
+ 4 Options
Conté à Paris Soft Pastel Sets
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Item #: 21986
$15.07 - $97.56
SAVE 32-53% off List!
A new formulation makes Conté à Paris Soft Pastels softer and easier to blend, while their creamy, even texture delivers optimum control and exception...
$15.07 - $97.56
SAVE 32-53% off List!
+ 3 Options
Conté à Paris Natural Charcoal
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Item #: 21985
$4.99
Made from carbonized willow branches, this natural charcoal from Conté à Paris has a particularly rich color.
$4.99
NEW!
Conté à Paris Stump Set
Item #: 83908
$6.68
An essential addition to any drawing toolkit, the Conté à Paris Stump Set includes three blending stumps and a tortillon ideal for shading, blending, ...
$6.68
About Conté à Paris
Until the nineteenth century, the best pencil graphite came from Borrowdale, in England. As a result of the French Revolution, the supply of English graphite was permanently embargoed, creating a problem for the French pencil-maker, artist and scientist Nicholas-Jacques Conté.
Conté had opened his pencil factory, later known as Blanzy-Conté Gilbert, with his brother Louis in 1793. For the business to survive, he had to find another way to produce a workable writing medium.
In 1795 Conté developed a method that involved mixing powdered local graphite with clay, waxes and water, firing the mixture in a kiln and forcing it into wooden casings.
This process allowed the French to produce their own pencils. It also permitted manufacturers to control the hardness of the lead, which in turn controlled the darkness of the mark made by the pencil.
The process was so successful that Conté became synonymous with pencil, and Conté crayons are valued and used by artists today.