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Watteau, Jean-Antoine (b.1684, d.1721)

Date

c 1719

dated stylistically

Place of production

France

Medium

oil on panel

Type of object

paintings

Accession number

2373

Oil painting of five players from the commedia dell'arte in a garden setting. In the centre stands a woman, probably Colombine, looking out at the viewer. She is dressed in a grey satin dress and hat, of early 18th-century French style. A woman, possibly Silvie - dressed as Harlequin - and a musician with a guitar, possibly Scapin, are to the left. On the right, there is a man dressed as Pierrot and a clown, his painted face just visible, pulling aside a curtain. Behind the figures, there are trees and sky. To the right, there is a term of Pan.

Most scholars accept this painting as an original by Antoine Watteau, damaged by old restoration. In a pastoral garden, several players from the Italian pantomime known as the 'commedia dell'arte' draw back the curtain before a performance. This composition was one of several by Watteau that depict actresses and actors playfully aware of the audience.

Commentary

The design was engraved by Watteau and retouched with the burin by Simonneau l'aîne with the title 'Les Habits sont italiens'. It was accompanied by a poem which translates as ‘The clothes are Italian, the tunes are French, and I bet that in these true actors lies an amiable delusion, And that Italians and Frenchmen, laughing at human folly, at the same time laugh at France and Italy’. The poem suggests the image existed somewhere between theatrical representation and social satire, gently mocking national identity. The fact that the central woman's dress is fashionably French, adds to the irony of the poem’s first line. The commedia dell'arte characters shown are thought to be Scapin, Silvie, Colombine, Gilles, and a clown.

Watteau came to Paris around 1702 and studied with Claude Gillot who also painted theatre scenes as well as scenes of everyday life. Watteau used the surface appeal of the theatre in his innovative paintings of courtly gatherings known as ‘fêtes galantes’. His works often have an underlying air of melancholy as suggested by the poem.

There is another version of the painting in the Rosenheim collection, Paris, which is less similar to the Simonneau engraving. Watteau sketched real actresses before devising the composition. There is a study for the woman's head in the centre, which is from a sheet of studies of heads of actresses. François Boucher engraved the composition from a drawing under the title 'La Troupe Italienne' for the 'Recueil Julienne', a book of engravings after Watteau’s works, published in 1735.

Phillippa Plock, 2011

Physical description

Dimensions (mm) / weight (mg)

223 x 302

Signature & date

not signed or dated

Marks

Seal of either Jean-Jacques (d. 1749) or Antoine-Jacques (d. 1794) Amelot du Chaillou, on reverse
Collector's mark
on verso, red seal, identified in Levey's article (1959).

Seal with possibly a coronet of a Count over an oval shield, on reverse
Collector's mark
on verso, black seal

History

Provenance

Owned by Amelot du Chaillou, 18th century; possibly in Collier Sale, Paris 1789, no. 55; possibly in L'Homme Sale, Paris, 24-25th March 1834, no. 79, sold for 391 francs (see Goncourt, 1875); owned by Baron James de Rothschild (b.1792, d.1868) by descent to his son Baron Edmond de Rothschild (b.1845, d.1934); by descent to his son James de Rothschild (b.1878, d.1957); bequeathed to Waddesdon (National Trust) in 1957.

Collection

Waddesdon (National Trust)
Bequest of James de Rothschild, 1957

Bibliography

Edmond de Goncourt; Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, dessiné et gravé d'Antoine Watteau; Paris; Rapilly, Libraire et Marchand d'Estampes; 1875; p. 12
Louis Dimier; Les Peintres Français du XVIII Siecle; 2 vols; Paris; Les Editions G.Van Oest; 1928-1930; p. 36, no. 71; as by Watteau
Émile Dacier, Albert Vuaflart; Jean de Julienne et les Graveurs de Watteau au XVIIIe siècle; Paris; M Rousseau; 1922; no. 130, on engraving after composition
Hélène Adhémar; Watteau: sa vie, son oeuvre; Paris; Tisné; 1950; p. 221, no. 155; as copy of Rosenheim picture
Michael Levey, French and Italian Paintings at Waddesdon, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 54, August 1959, 57-66; p. 57, fig. 1
Anita Brookner, French Pictures at Waddesdon, The Burlington Magazine, 101, 1959, 271-273; p. 273, fig. 24; as a badly damaged original
Ellis Waterhouse, Anthony Blunt; Paintings: The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor; Fribourg; Office du Livre, The National Trust; 1967; p. 288; ascribed to Watteau
Ettore Camesasca, John Sunderland; The complete paintings of Watteau; London; Weidenfeld & Nicolson; 1971; p. 124, no. 204; dated c. 1719
Donald Posner; Antoine Watteau; Ithaca; Cornell University Press; 1984; rejects attribution to Watteau
Pierre Rosenberg; Antoine Watteau, 1684-1721: catalogue raisonné des dessins; 3 vols; Milan; Elemond S.P.A; 1996; vol. 1, p. 414, no. 262, statue and beginnings of composition
vol. 1, 298, fragment of study on verso
vol. 2, p. 830, no. 496, standing woman comparison
vol. 2, p. 880, for female central head study, from series of female actor heads
vol. 2, p. 1066, no. 625, woman side on
vol. 3, p. 1164, painting mentioned, attribution rejected
Pierre Rosenberg; Dal disegno alla pittura. Poussin, Watteau, Fragonard, David e Ingres; Milan; Mondadori; 2002; p. 290
Sonia Coman; The Recueil Jullienne. Collecting and Authorial Ambition; unpublished thesis

Indexed terms

Subjects

Genres

Fête Galante/Genres

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