Culture

Prospect recommends: Watteau

March 10, 2011
These 1716 sketches are part of the Royal Academy’s Watteau exhibition, the first of its kind in Britain
These 1716 sketches are part of the Royal Academy’s Watteau exhibition, the first of its kind in Britain


Watteau: The DrawingsRoyal Academy of Arts, 12th March-5th June, Tel: 020 7300 8000

Esprit et Vérité: Watteau and His CircleThe Wallace Collection, 12th March-5th June, Tel: 020 7563 9500 The Royal Academy is hosting the first major exhibition of Jean-Antoine Watteau’s drawings to be held in this country. This seems remarkable, given how the French artist valued his drawings; binding them in volumes to provide a permanent source of ideas for his paintings. Within a few years of his death in 1721, over 300 of his drawings had been published as etchings. Red chalk was a constant but he is known above all for his mastery of drawing in trois crayons: red, black and white. These are delicate scenes from Parisian life: the stout Persian gentleman; a woman seated on the ground in a striped dress; a young girl in a jaunty black hat, sketched from three angles; a page of elegant soldiers swinging their guns.

To complement this show, the Wallace, home to one of the world’s finest collections of Watteau’s paintings, focuses on his dealer and publisher, Jean de Jullienne. It was he who first sold Watteau’s work to a new market of bankers, artists and other dealers, not associated with the royal court. He ensured that the artist’s subtle, charming, deceptively lightweight response to his baroque forerunners became the central defining influence on French rococo.