Three actors in heroic costume and two head studies

This drawing and the following lot were part of an album with more than thirty sheets by Claude Gillot, discovered in the library of a residence outside Paris. The album was dismembered and the drawings dispersed on the art market in 2004 (on the album see J. Tonkovich, 'A New Album of Theater Drawings by Claude Gillot', Master Drawings, XLIV, no. 4 (Winter 2006), pp. 464-486).

Gillot was deeply committed to the world of the stage, and drawings of theatrical scenes and costume designs comprise a significant portion of his extant œuvre. The artist designed sets for the Paris Opéra and created costumes for stage entertainments in popular street fairs in Paris. On this sheet, which belongs to Gillot’s work for the Paris Opéra, are three male actors in heroic costume. All three figures stand in open fourth position, a stance common to actors and opera singers; their costumes are elaborate and the gestures restrained. The figure at the center, with his right hand extended and his fist clenched, is strikingly similar to the actor in Jean-Antoine Watteau’s enigmatic painting The French Comedians of 1720 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. 49.7.54; K. Baetjer, French Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art from the Early Eighteenth Century through the Revolution, New York, 2019, no. 11, ill.). Watteau, a pupil of Gillot, was most likely inspired for this figure by his master’s study.

Fig. 1. Jean-Antoine Watteau, The French Comedians. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.