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Lot Essay
Watteau supported himself as a decorative painter in his early years in Paris, and worked for a time in the studio of the ornamentalist Claude III Audran. There is every reason to think that he continued to take on commissions to paint decorative ensembles even after he achieved success as the creator of the new genre of the fte galante, and he probably supplemented his income with such work well into his maturity. It is likely that as his mastery and ambition as a painter developed, however, the nature of his decorative paintings evolved as well: the delicate tracery work of early arabesque paintings, such as he made around 1707-8 for the Htel de Nointel (see Christie's, New York, 18 May 1995, lot 52) seems to have eventually been replaced by more heroic, figurative allegories of a type befitting an academician and student of the old masters, as in the well-documented series of Four Seasons that he painted around 1716 for the dining room of his patron, Pierre Crozat. Only one of the Crozat Seasons has survived, Ceres, or Allegory of Summer (National Gallery of Art, Washington), but the monumental scale and carefully drawn anatomy of the goddess of the Harvest reveals Watteau's new approach to decorative painting.
La Nymphe de Fontaine must originally have formed part of another, although presumably less ambitious, decorative scheme that went unrecorded. Its format suggests that it would have been an overdoor for a small salon, perhaps a dining room or even an early salle des bain. Roland Michel notes (op. cit., 1984) that the patron must have been sufficiently well-known for artists to have visited his house, because despite the fact that the picture was never engraved, at least two contemporary copies are known, one of which had as a pendant a picture of a nymph that undoubtedly copied another painting in the ensemble, now lost. A copy of the present painting, attributed to Antoine Pesne (fig. 1; sold, Htel Drouot, Paris, 30 June 1979, lot 14), indicates that Watteau's original may have been cut slightly on both sides. Hlne Adhmar shrewdly observed (op. cit.) that a very similar nymph appears in an engraving after a lost painting of Thetis pushing Achilles in the River Styx by Watteau's friend, Nicolas Vleughels; as the print was published in 1719, this suggests that, in characteristic fashion, Vleughels had incorporated a memorable motif from one of Watteau's recent works.
Although it is not surprising that no drawings for the picture have survived - Caylus noted that Watteau destroyed his 'obscene' works before he died, and this might have included drawings of the female nude - a lost drawing by Watteau that must have been associated with the Nymphe de Fontaine was engraved by Carle Vanloo for the Figures de diffrents caractres (fig. 2), the posthumous compendium of prints made after Watteau's drawings that was published in 1726-8. The engraving, which was first linked to the painting by Jacques Mathey ( op. cit., 1958), depicts two nude water nymphs at the edge of a river, surrounded by reeds and leaning against urns from which waters flow. So closely does the print correspond to La Nymphe de Fontaine - the horizon line is at breast level in both works and the same reeds, twisted in a characteristic fashion at their tops, appear in each - that one is justified in believing the drawing on which it was based to have been related to the same decorative scheme for which the Nymphe was designed.
As with so many of Watteau's paintings, the dating of La Nymphe de Fontaine is the subject of some dispute. Mathey believed it a relatively early work from around 1711 or 1712, while Roland Michel has placed it quite late in the artist's short career, around 1717-18; Rosenberg and Camesasca situate it tentatively around 1716. Although it displays some of the weaknesses that are usually to be found in Watteau's rendering of anatomy, La Nymphe de Fontaine is a work of great assurance and maturity: the summary but vivid evocation of landscape, the warm, subtle glazing in the subject's flesh, and the extraordinarily sensitive modelling of her face and hands, all commend Roland Michel's later dating of 1717-18, a year or so after he painted the Crozat Seasons and the Diana Bathing in the Louvre. As Mathey observed, 'the two hands on either side of the urn may be regarded as the equivalent of a signature, for their flexibility and nervous vitality are as inimitable and as revealing as the style of those of Van Dyck or Ingres' (ibid.).
Although the origins of La Nymphe de Fontaine are unknown, its 19th-century history is well documented and of considerable significance. Just as Watteau's name was beginning to be mentioned once again in art circles (the first article about his work to have been published since the Revolution appeared in 1839), the painting was acquired by Paul Barroilhet (1810-1871), a baritone who sang in the Paris Opra from 1839 to 1847. Following professional setbacks which forced him to return to the chorus, Barroilhet began to put his considerable art collection on the auction block in 1855. Although the modern works in his collection - Barbizon paintings, notably by Rousseau, that the singer had purchased on the advice of his friend, the painter Jules Dupr - sold well, establishing record prices for contemporary artists, the masters of the previous century were still overlooked in the marketplace, and Barroilhet found himself lucky to sell Watteau's Judgment of Paris (today in the Louvre, Paris) to Dr. Louis La Caze in 1856 for 225 francs. The more ambitious La Nymphe de Fontaine went unsold until 1872 when it was finally purchased for the respectable sum of 8,650 francs. Just nine years later it would be sold again, for double that figure. By then Watteau and his contemporaries had been rediscovered after almost a century of neglect.
A turning point in the so-called 'Rococo Revival' came in 1860 when the first major exhibition of 18th-century French painting was held in Paris at the Galerie Martinet. In bringing together hundreds of paintings, mostly from private collections, this seminal event introduced the art of the Ancien Rgime to a new audience that, by and large, had never seen it. The reputation that Watteau developed as the 'great poet of the 18th-century' - in the Goncourts' memorable phrase - was born here, where he was principally represented by paintings from the unrivaled collection of Dr. La Caze, including Gilles, Le Faux-Pas, La Finette and L'Indifferent (all today in the Louvre, Paris), but also by the Portrait of a Gentleman (Louvre, Paris) from the collection of Jules Duclos, and La Nymphe de Fontaine, still the property of the cash-strapped Barroilhet. The exhibition would open the eyes of Manet and the Impressionist generation to the genius of Watteau, and it elicited wide-spread critical and popular attention.
In a review of the exhibition, La Nymphe was lavishly praised by Thor-Brger - the legendary critic responsible for 'rediscovering' Vermeer - as a 'masterpiece equal to the most striking Rubens', one that 'would not be out of place beside the Antiope of Correggio' (op. cit., p. 231). Like the historian Charles Blanc (1855) and the novelist Thophile Gauthier (1856) before him, Thor-Brger mistakenly believed the painting to be a portrait of the wife of Watteau's friend and patron, Jean de Jullienne, posed as a personification of the Seine - Edmond de Goncourt would correct this in 1875 by noting tersely that it is 'not a portrait, but simply a very beautiful 'acadmie' made in the studio'. But these early writers were correct in situating the painting in a tradition in French art dating back to Renaissance images of the water goddess of Fontainebleau, and they were wise in recognizing in La Nymphe de Fontaine the qualities of heroic form and seductive execution that made Watteau the natural successor to Rubens and the most important painter of his age.
In a Louis XIV carved giltwood frame, the corners and centers with panels of foliage and flowers interwoven with strapwork; foliate sight edge.
La Nymphe de Fontaine must originally have formed part of another, although presumably less ambitious, decorative scheme that went unrecorded. Its format suggests that it would have been an overdoor for a small salon, perhaps a dining room or even an early salle des bain. Roland Michel notes (op. cit., 1984) that the patron must have been sufficiently well-known for artists to have visited his house, because despite the fact that the picture was never engraved, at least two contemporary copies are known, one of which had as a pendant a picture of a nymph that undoubtedly copied another painting in the ensemble, now lost. A copy of the present painting, attributed to Antoine Pesne (fig. 1; sold, Htel Drouot, Paris, 30 June 1979, lot 14), indicates that Watteau's original may have been cut slightly on both sides. Hlne Adhmar shrewdly observed (op. cit.) that a very similar nymph appears in an engraving after a lost painting of Thetis pushing Achilles in the River Styx by Watteau's friend, Nicolas Vleughels; as the print was published in 1719, this suggests that, in characteristic fashion, Vleughels had incorporated a memorable motif from one of Watteau's recent works.
Although it is not surprising that no drawings for the picture have survived - Caylus noted that Watteau destroyed his 'obscene' works before he died, and this might have included drawings of the female nude - a lost drawing by Watteau that must have been associated with the Nymphe de Fontaine was engraved by Carle Vanloo for the Figures de diffrents caractres (fig. 2), the posthumous compendium of prints made after Watteau's drawings that was published in 1726-8. The engraving, which was first linked to the painting by Jacques Mathey ( op. cit., 1958), depicts two nude water nymphs at the edge of a river, surrounded by reeds and leaning against urns from which waters flow. So closely does the print correspond to La Nymphe de Fontaine - the horizon line is at breast level in both works and the same reeds, twisted in a characteristic fashion at their tops, appear in each - that one is justified in believing the drawing on which it was based to have been related to the same decorative scheme for which the Nymphe was designed.
As with so many of Watteau's paintings, the dating of La Nymphe de Fontaine is the subject of some dispute. Mathey believed it a relatively early work from around 1711 or 1712, while Roland Michel has placed it quite late in the artist's short career, around 1717-18; Rosenberg and Camesasca situate it tentatively around 1716. Although it displays some of the weaknesses that are usually to be found in Watteau's rendering of anatomy, La Nymphe de Fontaine is a work of great assurance and maturity: the summary but vivid evocation of landscape, the warm, subtle glazing in the subject's flesh, and the extraordinarily sensitive modelling of her face and hands, all commend Roland Michel's later dating of 1717-18, a year or so after he painted the Crozat Seasons and the Diana Bathing in the Louvre. As Mathey observed, 'the two hands on either side of the urn may be regarded as the equivalent of a signature, for their flexibility and nervous vitality are as inimitable and as revealing as the style of those of Van Dyck or Ingres' (ibid.).
Although the origins of La Nymphe de Fontaine are unknown, its 19th-century history is well documented and of considerable significance. Just as Watteau's name was beginning to be mentioned once again in art circles (the first article about his work to have been published since the Revolution appeared in 1839), the painting was acquired by Paul Barroilhet (1810-1871), a baritone who sang in the Paris Opra from 1839 to 1847. Following professional setbacks which forced him to return to the chorus, Barroilhet began to put his considerable art collection on the auction block in 1855. Although the modern works in his collection - Barbizon paintings, notably by Rousseau, that the singer had purchased on the advice of his friend, the painter Jules Dupr - sold well, establishing record prices for contemporary artists, the masters of the previous century were still overlooked in the marketplace, and Barroilhet found himself lucky to sell Watteau's Judgment of Paris (today in the Louvre, Paris) to Dr. Louis La Caze in 1856 for 225 francs. The more ambitious La Nymphe de Fontaine went unsold until 1872 when it was finally purchased for the respectable sum of 8,650 francs. Just nine years later it would be sold again, for double that figure. By then Watteau and his contemporaries had been rediscovered after almost a century of neglect.
A turning point in the so-called 'Rococo Revival' came in 1860 when the first major exhibition of 18th-century French painting was held in Paris at the Galerie Martinet. In bringing together hundreds of paintings, mostly from private collections, this seminal event introduced the art of the Ancien Rgime to a new audience that, by and large, had never seen it. The reputation that Watteau developed as the 'great poet of the 18th-century' - in the Goncourts' memorable phrase - was born here, where he was principally represented by paintings from the unrivaled collection of Dr. La Caze, including Gilles, Le Faux-Pas, La Finette and L'Indifferent (all today in the Louvre, Paris), but also by the Portrait of a Gentleman (Louvre, Paris) from the collection of Jules Duclos, and La Nymphe de Fontaine, still the property of the cash-strapped Barroilhet. The exhibition would open the eyes of Manet and the Impressionist generation to the genius of Watteau, and it elicited wide-spread critical and popular attention.
In a review of the exhibition, La Nymphe was lavishly praised by Thor-Brger - the legendary critic responsible for 'rediscovering' Vermeer - as a 'masterpiece equal to the most striking Rubens', one that 'would not be out of place beside the Antiope of Correggio' (op. cit., p. 231). Like the historian Charles Blanc (1855) and the novelist Thophile Gauthier (1856) before him, Thor-Brger mistakenly believed the painting to be a portrait of the wife of Watteau's friend and patron, Jean de Jullienne, posed as a personification of the Seine - Edmond de Goncourt would correct this in 1875 by noting tersely that it is 'not a portrait, but simply a very beautiful 'acadmie' made in the studio'. But these early writers were correct in situating the painting in a tradition in French art dating back to Renaissance images of the water goddess of Fontainebleau, and they were wise in recognizing in La Nymphe de Fontaine the qualities of heroic form and seductive execution that made Watteau the natural successor to Rubens and the most important painter of his age.
In a Louis XIV carved giltwood frame, the corners and centers with panels of foliage and flowers interwoven with strapwork; foliate sight edge.