Jean-Antoine Watteau, Three Studies of a Young Girl Wearing a Hat, c. 1716. Red and black chalk, graphite on paper, 138 x 246 mm. Collection of Ann and Gordon Getty;

Jean-Antoine Watteau, Woman Wearing a Mantle over Her Head and Shoulders, c. 1718–19. Black and red chalks with stumping on paper, 197 x 179 mm. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Photo © Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown Massachusetts, USA. Photo Michael Agee.

Jean-Antoine Watteau, Two Studies of Women, the One on the Left with Arms Raised, the One on the Right Seated, Pulling up Her Stocking, c. 1716-17. Black, red and white chalks and graphite on cream paper, 260 x 205 mm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. Photo © The Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.

Royal Academy of Arts
Piccadilly
020 7300 8000
London
The Sackler Wing of Galleries
Watteau: The Drawings
March 12-June 5, 2011

In spring 2011, the Royal Academy of Arts presents the first major retrospective exhibition of Jean-Antoine Watteau’s (1684-1721) drawings to be held in the UK. The display contains over 80 works on paper produced by the French artist. The exhibition is organized chronologically and examines the development and mastery of his drawing methods. Watteau is perhaps best known for his invention of fêtes galantes, a new genre of small pictures of social gatherings of elegant people in parkland settings, examples of these together with theatre pieces, portraits and shop interiors will be on display.

Drawing lay at the heart of Watteau’s creative process; he prized his drawings and kept them in bound volumes which enabled him to refer to them when composing his paintings as they were an essential source of inspiration for figure poses. Throughout his career Watteau worked continually in red chalk, early works using this medium on display include The Shipwreck c.1710 and Interior of a Draper’s Shop c.1710-11. Although he achieved as broad a range of colour and tone as is possible through this medium, he is best known for his mastery of the trois crayons technique, the subtle manipulation and expert balancing of red, black and white. He made very little use of pen and ink and occasionally combined chalk with graphite, and also employed washes.

Watteau: The Drawings demonstrates the breadth of his oeuvre. Watteau made drawings of figures in poses that were charming, ambiguous and natural. The subjects depicted in his drawings varied enormously from the highly exotic, portrayed in works such as Seated Persian Wearing a Turban, c.1715; to the itinerant, Standing Savoyard, c.1715; and the joyous spirit of fantasy, Woman on a Swing, Seen from the Back, c.1715. Watteau’s influence has been subtle and profound, pre-empting the spirit of the French Rococo and foreshadowing the work of the Impressionists in execution and treatment of colour.

Watteau’s posthumous reputation can be measured by the fact that within a few years of his death in 1721, over three hundred of his drawings had been published as etchings in two volumes (1726, 1728). His work both as a draughtsman and as a painter influenced subsequent generations of French artists, notably François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard.

Organization Watteau: The Drawings has been organized by the Royal Academy of Arts. The exhibition has been curated by Pierre Rosenberg, Académie Française, Président-Directeur of the Musée du Louvre, Louis-Antoine Prat, Chargé de mission, Département des Arts graphiques, Musée du Louvre and Katia Pisvin, Royal Academy of Arts, London.

Catalogue To accompany this exhibition, the Royal Academy of Arts has published a fully illustrated catalogue. The introductory essay includes a biographical account of Watteau’s life and career, and a consideration of the role of drawing in his creative process. There will also be a piece on Watteau’s drawing technique and practice, and an essay by Martin Eidelberg charting the growth in appreciation of Watteau’s drawings in Britain.

Jean-Antoine Watteau, Woman Seen from the Back Seated on the Ground, Leaning Forward, c. 1717–18. Red and black chalk, wash and graphite on paper, 146 x 181 mm, The Trustees of the British Museum, London. Photo © The Trustees of the British Museum, London.

Jean-Antoine Watteau, Three Studies of Soldiers Holding Guns, 1715. Red chalk on paper, 151 x 199 mm. Collection Frits Lugt, Fondation Custodia, Paris;

Jean-Antoine Watteau (French, 1684-1721), Pilgrimage on the Isle of Cythera (L'Isle De Cythere), 1717, Oil on Canvas: 129 × 194 cm, Collection of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, London.

Jean-Antoine Watteau (French, 1684-1721), The Foursome (La Partie quarrée), ca. 1714, Oil on canvas; 19-1/2 x 24-3/4", Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Museum Purchase, Mildred Anna Williams Fund (1977.8).

Musette de Cour, ca. 1700, France, Leather, ivory, silk, wood, silver, iron, length of chanter with tenon: 10-1/8'; length of bourdon: 5-11/16"; length of bellows: 8-1/4, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Clara Mertens Bequest, in memory of André Mertens, 2003 (2003.63a-d).

Jean-Antoine Watteau (French, 1684-1721), Love in the Italian Theater (L'Amour au théâtre italien), Oil on canvas; 14-5/8 x 18-7/8, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin (470).

Jean-Antoine Watteau (French, 1684-1721), The Surprise (La Surprise), Oil on wood; 14 x 13-1/2", Private collection, courtesy of Jean-Luc Baroni Ltd.

Jean-Antoine Watteau (French, 1684-1721), Mezzetin (Mezetin), Oil on canvas; 21 3/4 x 17", The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Munsey Fund, 1934 (34.138).

Metropolitan
Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
at 82nd Street
212-535-7710
New York
European Paintings, Gallery 2,
2nd floor
Watteau, Music, and Theater
September 22-
November 29, 2009

Born in 1684 in Valenciennes in the Hainault (French, but formerly part of the Spanish Netherlands), Jean-Antoine Watteau is widely considered the most important artist in early 18th-century France. A solitary, ill-educated, self-taught, largely itinerant figure, he was a supremely gifted painter and draftsman whose surviving works of art are his testament. Most of them are so-called fêtes galantes, idyllic scenes that have no specifically identifiable subject. Only one of Watteau's paintings, The Embarkation for Cythera (1717), was publicly exhibited in his lifetime. Watteau died in 1720 at the age of 36 after a long illness.

Watteau, Music, and Theater, the first exhibition of Jean-Antoine Watteau's paintings in the United States in 25 years, is presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from September 22 through November 29. The exhibition demonstrates the place of music and theater in Watteau's art, exploring the tension between an imagery of power, associated with the court of Louis XIV, and a more optimistic and mildly subversive imagery of pleasure that was developed in opera-ballet and theater early in the 18th century. It demonstrates that the painter's vision was influenced directly by musical works devoted to the island of Cythera, the home of Venus, and to the Venetian carnival, and sheds new light on a number of Watteau's pictures.

The exhibition is made possible by The Florence Gould Foundation.

Watteau, Music, and Theater features more than 60 works of art, consisting of major loans of paintings and drawings by Watteau and his contemporaries from collections in the United States and Europe. The balance of the paintings are drawn from the Metropolitan Museum's collections, together with most of the works on paper, and all of the musical instruments, gold boxes, and ceramics.

While relatively little is known about Watteau, an expanding body of literature relating to Paris opera-ballet, plays, and the less formal and more traditional seasonal théâtres de la foire relates to specific works in the exhibition, and these can now be mined more deeply to examine the artist's life and work.

Among the many highlights of Watteau, Music, and Theater are the Metropolitan Museum's Watteau paintings Mezzetin and French Comedians; the Städel Museum'sThe Island of Cythera; Pleasures of the Dance from the Dulwich Picture Gallery; Love in the French Theater and Love in the Italian Theater, both from the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin; and The Alliance of Music and Comedy (private collection), which has not been on view in any museum in decades.

The exhibition marks the first time the painting La Surprise (private collection) can be seen in a museum. Lost for almost 200 years and presumed to have been destroyed, La Surprise was rediscovered last year in a British country house and later sold at auction.

Exquisite drawings by Watteau, including works from the Art Institute of Chicago, The Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, Massachusetts, and The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, are also be featured.

Other lenders to the exhibition are Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Brodick Castle, Isle of Arran (National Trust for Scotland); Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid; Schloss Sansoucci, Potsdam (Stiftung Preussische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg); Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; and National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Pictures by Lancret come from Michael L. Rosenberg Foundation, Dallas; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; and Alte Pinakothek, Munich.

The exhibition also includes works by contemporaries of Watteau, including Nicolas Lancret and Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Pater, who were influenced by him; fine drawings and engravings by other 18th-century European artists; Meissen porcelain figures depicting theatrical characters; and musical instruments of the era, including a rare Musette de Cour, or early bagpipe, from the Metropolitan Museum's collection.

The exhibition is organized by Katharine Baetjer, Curator in the Metropolitan Museum's Department of European Paintings, with Georgia J. Cowart, Professor in the Department of Music at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with an introduction by Pierre Rosenberg, de l'Académie française, Honorary President-Director of the Musée du Louvre, and an essay by Georgia J. Cowart. Other contributors to the catalogue are Katharine Baetjer, Jayson Kerr Dobney, Jeffrey Munger, and Perrin Stein, all of the Metropolitan Museum; Christoph Martin Vogtherr, curator at The Wallace Collection, London; Kim de Beaumont, Esther Bell, Mary Tavener Holmes, and Anna Piotrowska. The catalogue is made possible by the Drue E. Heinz Fund.

Franz Anton Bustelli (German, d. 1763), Nymphenburg Porcelain Factory, Germany, Harlequine, ca. 1760, Hard-paste porcelain; H. 8 5/8", The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of R. Thornton Wilson, in memory of Florence Ellsworth Wilson, 1950 (50.211.251).

Jean-Antoine Watteau (French, 1684-1721), Love in the French Theatre, detail, 1714, Oil on canvas, 37 x 48 cm.

Jean-Antoine Watteau (French, 1684-1721), The Pleasures of the Ball (Les Plaisirs du bal), Oil on canvas; 20-3/4 x 25-3/4", By Permission of the Trustees of the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London.