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
