Antoine Watteau (Valenciennes 1684-1721 Nogent-sur-Marne)

A woman in a long dress, seated in profile to the left

Details

Antoine Watteau (Valenciennes 1684-1721 Nogent-sur-Marne)
A woman in a long dress, seated in profile to the left
red and white chalk on light brown paper
8¼ x 6 in. (211 x 152 mm.)

Provenance

W. Mayor (cf. L. 2799), before 1871.
Marquis de Valori (L. 2500); Paris, 25-26 November 1907, lot 245.
E. Wauters (L. 911), with his signature on the backing.
with Richard S. Owen, Paris.
Jacques Mathey.
Yves de la Patellière.
J.P. Baudouin.
M. Ambrogi.
with Artemis, London and New York.

Literature

Original Drawings and Sketches by the Old Masters ... formed by the late Mr. William Mayor, London, 1875, no. 559.
F. Lees, The Art of the Great Masters as exemplified by drawings in the collection of Emile Wauters, London, 1913, p. 145, pl. 162.
K.T. Parker, The Drawings of Antoine Watteau, London, 1931, p.34 and note 6.
K.T. Parker and J. Mathey, Antoine Watteau, catalogue complet de son oeuvre dessinée, Paris, 1957, II, no.604.
M. Roland-Michel, Watteau. Un artiste du XVIII^e siècle, Paris and London, 1984, p. 223.
P. Rosenberg and M. Morgan Grasselli, Watteau, 1684-1721, exhib. cat. Washington, National Gallery of Art and elsewhere, 1984-85, pp. 370, fig. 13, and p. 372.
M. Morgan Grasselli, The drawings of Antoine Watteau, stylistic development and problems of chronology, Cambridge, Harvard University (unpublished doctoral thesis), p. 285, no. 211, fig. 350.
P. Rosenberg and L.-A. Prat, Antoine Watteau, 1684-1721, Catalogue raisonné des dessins, Milan, 1996, I, no. 264.

Lot Essay

This figure was used by Watteau for a woman seated in a group just to the right of centre of Les plaisirs du bal, now in the Dulwich Picture Gallery (Rosenberg and Morgan Grasselli, op. cit., no. 51). According to Pierre-Jean Mariette, the painting, now generally dated 1716-17, 'justifiably passes as one of the most beautiful of Watteau's works'. This high regard mirrors that of Watteau himself, who judging by the many surviving drawings related to the composition took a great deal of care in its preparation, and also of later generations who made it among his most widely copied works.
Pierre Rosenberg and Louis-Antoine Prat suggest that the drawing predates the painting by a few years, suggesting a date of 1714-15, while Meg Morgan Grasselli suggests 1716.

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