The French Comedians

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.

Antoine Watteau

Ca. 1720

Oil on canvas

Metropolitan Museum of Art accession number: 49.7.54

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)

The Jules Bache Collection, 1949