The worlds of Watteau

In his preface to the proceedings of the symposium organised on the sidelines of FAB Paris in November 2021, published the following year under the title "Réseaux et influences autour d’Antoine Watteau (1684-1721)" ("Networks and influences around Antoine Watteau (1684-1721)"), Pierre Rosenberg pointed out (with regret) that the 300th anniversary of the artist’s deathartist had not been celebrated either in Paris or in Valenciennes. It therefore fell to another museum in the Hauts-de-France region to devote a new exhibition to Watteau, one of the last great names in art history to remain as beloved by art lovers as by the general public. Any new exhibition is therefore highly prized by specialists eager for new insights into Watteau studies – as they are now called – as well as by novices and those curious about (very) beautiful drawings. However, the exhibition does not begin with the most beautiful sheet on display at the Musée Condé, but with a famous drawing - widely reproduced in engravings - which has long since left Watteau’s corpus and has been the artist’s quasi-official portrait since the 18th century (ill. 1). It can be found on the portrait by Jean de Jullienne, Watteau’s protector and friend, and probable author of this drawing [1].

It also took several singular collectors to discover these ‘worlds of Watteau’ even if the first of them – the Duke of Aumale – cannot really be described as a collector of the artist’s work, as Baptiste Roelly points out in a brilliant essay questioning Watteau’s place and reception in the 19th century and at the Château de Chantilly. The four paintings and, above all, the six drawings acquired by the prince collector would…