Schmincke began in 1881, when the color chemists Josef Horadam and Hermann Schmincke searched and found Professor Cesare Mussini at the Academy in Florence, still preserving old family recipes of the finest natural resin-oil-colors.

Those recipes became the basis for the initial and immediately successful program of the Schmincke color-manufacturing plant, while other suppliers continued to make the more simple oil colors without resins. Throughout the years, Schmincke has expanded its product offering to include a variety of oil painting materials, watercolors, and pastels.

Four generations after its founding, the Schmincke tradition continues, supplying the finest color materials for the demanding artists. The founders' motto still holds true today: "MELIORA COGITO - I strive for the best."

Schmincke Soft Pastels contain only the purest medium fine ground artists' pigments. The binding agent content is kept to a minimum, which makes these pastels ultra soft. In order to guarantee the highest quality it is necessary to manufacture Schmincke pastels using special recipes which avoid the use of machinery during manufacture.

'Worm extruders' form the pre-kneaded dough into round skeins, which are then detached by hand and cut in a wirestrung frame. The damp sticks have to dry for around eight days before they can be labelled and packed by hand. This is a costly and time consuming process, however it is the only way Schmincke can guarantee homogenous quality and smoothness in all the production cycles.