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X. Fête galante

Entered May 2020

 

Whereabouts unknown

Oil on canvas

36 x 34 cm

 

PROVENANCE

Munich, sale, Helbing, April 25, 1904, lot 116: “Watteau.”

 

REMARKS

Although sold as an autograph work by Watteau in 1904, the painting is only a clever pastiche after his compositions. The major source of inspiration was the Liotard engraving after Watteau’s La Conversation, which is in the reverse sense of the original painting. Not only did the pasticheur copy the figures but also the general configuration of Watteau’s trees.

A telling element in the Helbing picture, not present in La Conversation, is the woman on the swing. This figure was borrowed from a different source, another print in the Jullienne Oeuvre gravé. The woman is taken from Joulllain’s engraving after Watteau’s Les Agréments de l’été. Watteau left his woman floating above her companions, looking toward them in only a generalized way and not making direct contact. On the other hand, the pasticheur lowered the woman so that she  looks directly into the face of the man beside her, thus creating a sense of dialogue, an effect very different from the ambiguity that pervades Watteau’s picture.

 

 

 

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