L'Indifférent (1717)
L'Indifférent is a 1717 oil on panel painting by Antoine Watteau, which entered the Louvre in the collection of Louis La Caze in 1869.
Antoine Watteau
1684–1721 · Rococo. Wikipedia
Jean-Antoine Watteau was a French painter and draughtsman whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement, as seen in the tradition of Correggio and Rubens. He revitalized the waning Baroque style, shifting it to the less severe, more naturalistic, less formally classical, Rococo. Watteau is credited with inventing the genre of fêtes galantes, scenes of bucolic and idyllic charm, suffused with a theatrical air. Some of his best known subjects were drawn from the world of Italian comedy and ballet.
Paintings by Antoine Watteau
The Embarkation for Cythera (1717)
The Embarkation for Cythera ("L'embarquement pour Cythère") is a painting by the French painter Jean-Antoine Watteau. It is also known as Voyage to Cythera and Pilgrimage to the Isle of Cythera. Watteau submitted this work to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture as his reception piece in 1717. The painting is now in the Louvre, Paris. A second version of the work, sometimes called Pilgrimage to Cythera to distinguish it, was painted by Watteau about 1718 or 1719 and is in the Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin. These elaborated a much simpler depiction painted by Watteau in 1709 or 1710, which is now in Frankfurt.
Pierrot (Watteau) (1718)
Pierrot, formerly known as Gilles, is a life-size oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist Antoine Watteau, created between 1718 and 1719. Noted for its scale, the piece measures 184.5 x 149.5 cm and is the only life-size figure Watteau has represented. Th painting depicts a variety of actors with the traditional commedia dell'arte character Pierrot in a still, frontal pose. The work has been part of the Louvre's collection since it was bequeathed in 1869. Little is certain about the origin of the work. Generally dated to the 1710s, the painting was not included in the 18th century Recueil Jullienne, a major catalog of Watteau's work reproduced in prints. The painting was not mentioned in written records until 1826. Some scholars speculate that the painting originated as a shop sign, possibly one of two signs commissioned by the retired actor Belloni, an actor known for performing as Pierrot.
L'Enseigne de Gersaint (1720)
L'Enseigne de Gersaint (transl. "The Shop Sign of Gersaint") is an oil on canvas painting in the Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin, by French painter Jean-Antoine Watteau. Completed during 1720–21, it is considered to be the last prominent work of Watteau, who died some time after. It was painted as a shop sign for the marchand-mercier, or art dealer, Edme François Gersaint. According to Daniel Roche the sign functioned more as an advertisement for the artist than the dealer. The painting exaggerates the size of Gersaint's cramped boutique, hardly more than a permanent booth with a little backshop, on the medieval Pont Notre-Dame, in the heart of Paris, both creating and following fashion as he purveyed works of art and luxurious trifles to an aristocratic clientele.
Fêtes Vénitiennes (1719)
Fêtes Vénitiennes is a 1719 painting by Antoine Watteau, now in the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh, to which it was bequeathed in 1861 by Lady Murray of Henderland, widow of John Murray, Lord Murray. It takes its title from a 1732 engraving of the work by Laurent Cars and is derived from the Venetian styles of dress and dancing shown in the work, the former inspired by the commedia dell'arte. It belongs to the fêtes galantes genre created by Watteau. The main dancer in the centre was thought to be the Comédie-Française actress Charlotte Desmares, a mistress of the Duc d'Orleans, whilst some identify the dancer in the black hat as the Flemish painter Nicolas Vleughels, a friend of Watteau. These two dancers are shown dancing a minuet, with other figures sitting in the background. These include a man courting a woman, two women talking to an actor and a presumed self-portrait of the painter as a musician holding a set of bagpipes – these had had a sexual symbolism since the Middle Ages, such as in Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights. Behind this seated group are two more people and a fountain.
Jupiter and Antiope (Watteau) (1716)
Jupiter and Antiope (French: Jupiter et Antiope) is an oil painting by the French artist Antoine Watteau. It is also known as the Satyr and the Sleeping Nymph and was probably painted between 1714 and 1719. Intended to be placed over a doorway, today it hangs in the Musée du Louvre in Paris. The painting is oval shaped, with a width of 107.5 cm and a height of 73 cm. In the foreground it depicts the naked, sleeping Antiope. She lies with her head on the left edge of the painting, twisted so that her front side faces the viewer. Her right arm is bent under her head while her left arm hangs down into the abyss in front of her. This arm covers the right breast, while the left remains free. Her legs are bent up towards the viewer, with the right continuing the line of her body at the knee while her left leg is only slightly bent to point back to the lower right of the painting. The whole body is painted in pale, warm colours and lights up the otherwise dark and earthy image. Under the sleeping woman there is a cloth, which hangs over the abyss near her breast, disappears under her arm near her head and is lifted by the satyr behind her.
The Faux Pas (1717)
The Faux Pas is a 1716-1718 oil on canvas painting by Antoine Watteau, now in the Louvre, which was left by Dr La Trujillo in 1869. It draws on north European works such as The Village Fête by Rubens, now also in the Louvre.
Actors of the Comédie-Française (1710)
Actors of the Comédie-Française, also traditionally known as The Coquettes (Les Coquettes; from Coquettes qui pour voir), is an oil on panel painting in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, by the French Rococo artist Antoine Watteau (1684–1721). Variously dated within the 1710s by scholars, the painting forms a compact half-length composition that combines portraiture and genre painting, notably influenced by Venetian school, the Le Nain brothers, and Watteau's master Claude Gillot; one of the rarest cases in Watteau's body of work, it shows five figures — two women, two men, and a black boy — amid a darkened background, in contrary to landscapes that are usually found in Watteau's fêtes galantes. For three centuries, there were numerous attempts to identify the subject and the characters represented by Watteau; various authors thought the painting to be either a theatrical scene featuring commedia dell'arte masks, or a group portrait of Watteau's contemporaries. Beginning from the late 20th century, Russian and Western sources accept a theory developed within the Hermitage Museum that holds the painting to be a group portrait of the Comédie-Française players who performed in the playwright Florent Carton Dancourt's play The Three Cousins. Given a variety of available interpretations, the painting has been known under a number of various titles; its traditional naming is derived from anonymous verses, with which the painting was published as an etching in the 1730s.
Mezzetino (Watteau) (1717)
Mezzetino (transl. Mezzetin; French: Mézetin) is an oil-on-canvas painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, by the French Rococo painter Jean-Antoine Watteau. Dated within 1717–1720, Mezzetino forms a full-length single-figure composition, depicting the eponymous character in commedia dell'arte. In the 18th century, Mezzetino was owned by Jean de Jullienne, the friend and patron of Watteau who supervised the four-volume edition of prints after the artist's works, for which the picture was engraved by Benoit Audran the Elder; after Jullienne's death in 1766, it was acquired for the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, then recently established by Empress Catherine II of Russia. During the Soviet sales in the 1920s and 1930s, Mezzetino was sold to British-American businessman Calouste Gulbenkian; it was later sold to the Wildenstein art firm in Paris and New York, from which it was bought in 1934 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it remains; the institution also owns a preparatory study—a drawing of the man's head. Mezzetino was a comedy character, based on Harlequin but with his own distinctive costume, who was introduced for the first time by the Théâtre italien de Paris actor Angelo Costantini on October 16, 1683. Constantini's expressive face allowed him to portray the role without a mask, a tradition kept alive by all successive Mezzetinos. That novelty attracted Watteau, who featured Mezzetino in several of his works. In the picture, Mezzetino is playing his guitar and singing, his eyes lifted as if towards an unseen balcony. The statue of Venus behind him is facing away, suggesting that his feelings are not shared by the lady she represents. Although the model for Mezzetino is not known, the fact that Jean de Jullienne, who, while selling a number of Watteau's works through his life, still kept Mezzetino, suggests he may have fulfilled the role.
The Chord (painting) (1715)
The Chord (L'Accord), also known as The Serenader (Le Donneur de sérénades) and Mezzetino (Mézetin), is an oil on panel painting in the Musée Condé, Chantilly, by the French Rococo painter Antoine Watteau, variously dated c. 1714–1717. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, The Chord passed through numerous private collections, until it came into possession of Henri d'Orléans, Duke of Aumale, son of King Louis Philippe I; as part of the Duke of Aumale's collection at the Château de Chantilly, The Chord was bequeathed to the Institut de France in 1884. At 24 by 17 cm, the painting forms a single-figure full-length composition that depicts a male guitarist in theatrical costume, sitting amid the landscape. The guitarist, widely associated with the commedia dell'arte character Mezzetino, is a recurring subject in Watteau's art; based on a red and black chalk drawing owned by the Louvre, it is also present in two other paintings by Watteau, The Surprise (now in the Getty Museum, Los Angeles) and Pleasures of Love (now in the Alte Meister Gallery, Dresden).
The Two Cousins (1716)
The Two Cousins is a 1716 oil-on-canvas painting by Antoine Watteau, now in the Louvre Museum, in Paris, which acquired it in 1990.
The Shepherds (Watteau) (1717)
The Shepherds (French - Les Bergers) is a c. 1717 painting by Antoine Watteau, now in the Schloss Charlottenburg in Berlin. It is the most finished version of a composition later reused by the same artist in Pastoral Pleasure (c.1714-1716, Musée Condé). It shows city-dwellers in the countryside pretending to be peasants. In the centre a young man dressed in an elegant doublet and a plumed beret dances what seems to be a minuet with a young woman in a satin dress whilst a musician plays for them. One other couple observes the dancers, another couple whispers to each other and a third plays with a swing. Several details are directly inspired by the work of Peter Paul Rubens - the musician, his neighbour, the shepherd embracing the woman next to him and the dog in the foreground. The affected character of the scene is heightened by the presence of a real shepherd, whose sheep graze in the far right background, almost hidden by bushes. Overall the painting transposes French pastoral poetry of the time into painted form.
Polish Woman (1725)
Polish Woman is an oil on panel painting in the National Museum, Warsaw, historically attributed to the French Rococo artist Jean-Antoine Watteau. The painting correlates to a presumably lost drawing by Watteau that is now known via François Boucher's etching published in 1726 as part of the Recueil Jullienne. Given that the painting is not signed, its attribution and dating remain uncertain; various authors either accept or reject the painting as a Watteau, dating it from the early 1710s to the early 1730s.
The Dreamer (painting) (1713)
The Dreamer (La Rêveuse) is an oil on panel painting of c. 1712–1717 in the Art Institute, Chicago, by the French Rococo artist Antoine Watteau. The painting is a single-figure, full-length composition that shows a seated young woman amid a landscape, dressed in somewhat an exotic attire consisting of long red gown with fur garment and white bonnet; it is a recurring subject that is also present in numerous paintings and drawings by Watteau such as The Coquettes, dit Actors of the Comédie-Française. There were attempts to identify the sitter of the painting, who was notably thought to be Watteau's contemporary, the Comédie-Française actress Charlotte Desmares. In the early 18th century, The Dreamer belonged to the Abbé Pierre-Maurice Haranger, canon at the Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois who was one of Watteau's closest friends. During two centuries, the painting passed through various private collections, until coming into possession of the art dealer and connoisseur Georges Wildenstein, who sold it to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1960.
La Boudeuse (painting) (1718)
La Boudeuse is the modern title given to an oil on canvas painting in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, by the French Rococo painter Antoine Watteau (1684–1721). Completed in the late 1710s, La Boudeuse depicts a young couple set amidst a park in the foreground, in a rare example of the two-figure landscape composition which is considered one of the best fêtes galantes in Watteau's later work. However, the picture's authenticity was also a subject of scholarly debate, for it had been engraved by English painter Philippe Mercier, once a follower of Watteau, and was not included in Jean de Jullienne's edition of Watteau's work published in the 1730s. Since the mid-18th century, La Boudeuse was among collections formed by the British statesman Robert Walpole, and later by his son, the writer Horace Walpole; until the sale of 1842, it was located in Horace Walpole's estate, Strawberry Hill House. Following a number of sales in the middle of the 19th century, the painting came into possession of prominent Russian art collector, Count Pavel Stroganov; after the Revolution of 1917, La Boudeuse was transferred into the Hermitage Museum, where it remains.