Museum Masterpieces: The Louvre

Lecture 9: Watteau and Chardin
another is in the Gemälde Gallerie in Berlin—but the Louvre version was
accepted by the Royal Academy as Watteau’s “reception piece.” The
painting is large and complex in its organizational structure. It represents
a group of beautifully dressed courtiers who have been on an outing to the
mythological island of Cythera. Watteau shows them when their idyllic day
is at an end; they are saying goodbye to this temporary paradise—and to
each other—as they board the boat
to leave. The subtle melancholy
that pervades the Paris version of
the painting differentiates it from
its brighter and cheerier variant in
Berlin. We seem to be as much at
the end of an era as an afternoon.
Watteau’s Portrait of a Gentleman
is, like many portraits in the history
of art, unidenti� ed in terms of its
sitter. Whatever his name, he was
clearly wealthy, well-fed, and well
born. He is dressed superbly, with extensive hand embroidery on both his
waistcoat and his jacket, and the sleeves of his � ne cotton shirt are � nished
in the � nest of French lace.
Although he seems to be dressed for the indoors, we see him in a darkly wild
garden, leaning on what seems to be an empty pedestal and looking out of
the painting to the upper right. He is, as such, full of ambiguity as a man, as
a sitter, and as a painted subject.
Many of Watteau’s most important and beautiful works of art are tiny
easel paintings on either panel or canvas. These works were created for
the incredibly luxurious but small private apartments of Parisian collectors
of the period, men and women who also collected Old Master drawings
and other cabinet pictures designed for the private delectation of the rich
and re� ned.
The three paintings by Watteau selected here, Autumn, The Judgment of
Paris, and Le Faux Pas are all small, although Autumn is large enough to
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Watteau, The Embarkation from
Cythera, 1717.
Corel Stock Photo Library.