The French Comedians

Item

Title

The French Comedians

Description

The costumes and repertoire of French comedians was distinct from Watteau’s favored Italian commedia dell’arte. This painting’s principal male figure is dressed in an old-fashioned, formal costume that in the eighteenth century would have been appropriate for a subject from antiquity. Typical of Watteau, however, the scene is entirely imaginary and does not align with any known opera or play. The entrance from backstage of Crispin, a character from the commedia dell’arte, underscores the improbability of the scene. Infrared reflectography shows a preparatory underdrawing on the canvas, probably by a specialist architecture painter, a practice Watteau often employed to create such stagelike spaces.

Creator

Antoine Watteau

Date

Ca. 1720

Medium

Oil on canvas

Identifier

Metropolitan Museum of Art accession number: 49.7.54

Provenance

Jean de Jullienne, Paris (by 1731–44); Frederick II (the Great), King of Prussia, Stadtschloss, Potsdam (1744–d. 1786); by descent, Potsdam and Berlin (1786–1888); Kaiser Wilhelm [William II, King of Prussia], Neues Palais, Potsdam (1888–1927; abdicated in 1918 and fled to Doorn, The Netherlands; this picture remained in Germany and was sold through Hugo Moser to Duveen); [Duveen, Paris, London, and New York, 1927–28; sold for $275,000 to Bache]; Jules S. Bache, New York (1928–d. 1944; his estate, 1944–49; cats., 1929, unnumbered; 1937, no. 55; 1943, no. 54)

Is Part Of

The Jules Bache Collection, 1949

Item sets

TheFrenchComedians.jpg