Works on Paper 2019 - Jean Luc Baroni

Antoine Watteau
Valenciennes 1684 – Lille 1721
17
Study of a Man in Profile wearing a Lopsided-Cap
Black chalk, stumping and red chalk
227 x 168 mm (9 3 /4 6 1 /2 in.)
PROVENANCE
Léon Ducloux, his sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 14-15
February 1889, lot 168; Georges Dormeuil, (1856-
1939) his mark, (L.1146a) probably purchased
from Marius Paulme, with Paulme’s label on the old
frame giving catalogue number 131, referring to
the manuscript catalogue of Dormeuil’s collection;
thence by descent to Pierre Dormeuil in 1957;
private collection, Paris.
LITERATURE
Edmond de Goncourt, Catalogue raisonné de
l’œuvre peint, dessiné et gravé d’Antoine Watteau,
Paris 1875 p.364, no.472; Paul Matz and Edmond
de Goncourt, Cent dessins de Watteau gravé par
Boucher, Paris 1892, p.44 (engraving by Boucher)
and p.110, no.472; Karl Theodore Parker and
Jacques Mathey, Antoine Watteau: catalogue
complet de son œuvre dessiné, Paris 1957, vol.
II, no.654, ill. P.55; Pierette Jean Richard, L’œuvre
gravé de François Boucher dans la collection
Edmond de Rothschild, Paris 1978, p.44, under
no.79; Margaret Morgan Grasselli, The Drawings
of Antoine Watteau, stylistic development
and problems of chronology, doctoral thesis,
Cambridge, Harvard University, 1978, p.354,
no.250, Fig.434; Pierre Rosenberg and Louis-
Antoine Prat, Catalogue raisonné des dessins
d’Antoine Watteau, Milan 1996, vol.II, p.1080-
1081, no.632, illustrated.
career; we can also find them in his painted works
albeit of modest dimensions. In the catalogue
raisonné of Watteau’s drawings, Pierre Rosenberg
and Louis Antoine Prat date this sheet to 1718-19
mentioning its “strong structure” and pointing out
“the fine contrast between the highly finished areas
and those left in a more sketchy state” 1 . Margaret
Morgan Grasselli meanwhile proposes an earlier
dating, around 1717-1718 2 .
Le Conteur, well documented and described
several times 3 , had only been known through old
photographs, until it appeared in a public sale
at Christie’s in London on 13 December 2000.
Although the identity of the patron is unknown,
we do know that the print after the painting was
engraved by Charles Nicolas Cochin and published
by the art dealer Gersaint 4 with four quatrains
ENGRAVED
by François Boucher, in reverse, for the collection
of Figures de différents caractères, Paris 1726-
1728, no. 104.
The present study of a man in profile is preparatory
for one of the figures in the painting titled Le
Conteur, depicting a group of performers gathered
around a woman playing a guitar (Fig.1). The
monumental and assured quality of this drawing is
characteristic of Watteau’s works at the end of his
Fig 1. A. Watteau, Le Conteur, oil on panel,
private collection.
62