Claude Gillot (Langres 1673-1722 Paris)

Satyrs preparing a sacrifice

Details

Claude Gillot (Langres 1673-1722 Paris)
Satyrs preparing a sacrifice
red chalk, watermark letters HR
9 1/8 x 7¼ in. (23.1 x 18.5 cm.)

Provenance

A. Beurdeley (L. 421).
Dr. Sachau.
Dr. Ludwig Burchard.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 11 July 2001, lot 181.
with Agnew's (their label on the back of the frame).

Literature

K. T. Parker and J. Mathey, Antoine Watteau: catalogue complet de son oeuvre dessiné, Paris, 1957, I, no. 112, ill. (as Watteau).
M. Roland Michel, in Sanguines: dessins français du dix-huitième siècle, exhib. cat., Paris, Galerie Cailleux, 1978, p. 41, under no. 15.
M. Eidelberg, 'Watteau in the Atelier of Gillot', in the proceedings of the symposium Antoine Watteau (1684-1721): le peintre, son temps et sa légende [1984], Paris and Geneva, 1987, pp. 46-7, fig. 4.
M.M. Grasselli, The Drawings of Antoine Watteau, stylistic development and problems of chronology, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1987, I, p. 35, note 26, p. 46.
P. Rosenberg and L.-A. Prat, Antoine Watteau, Catalogue raisonné des dessins, Milan, 1996, III, p. 1213, no. R234, ill.

Lot Essay

Gillot was Jean-Antoine Watteau's (1684-1721) master from 1705 until 1708. Drawings made by the artists from this period are hard to distinguish and they have been often confused. Such was the case with this drawing when it was published as Watteau by K. T. Parker and J. Mathey (op. cit., no. 112). Marianne Roland Michel, however, was the first to recognize this drawing as by Gillot (op. cit., p. 41). She compared the rapid handling of the chalk, mainly seen in the background, with similar drawings by the artist and the attribution was later maintained by Eidelberg, Grasselli and Rosenberg and Prat (op. cit.). Although not a preliminary study, this sheet may be related to the series of four etchings La vie des Satyres (see Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Inv. 2012.136.373.1-4).

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