Print this Entry

X. Le Bal champêtre

Entered September 2021

Whereabouts unknown

Oil on canvas

47.6 x 65.4 cm or 59.5 x 88 cm

 

ALTERNATIVE TITLE

Le Menuet

 

PROVENANCE

New York, sale, Doyle, January 25, 1995, lot 73. "Manner of Jean Antoine Watteau / 'Le Bal champêtre' 18¾ x 25¾ inches / $2,500-3,500." Bought in.

Paris, sale, Hôtel Drouot (Poulain . Le Fur), June 21, 1995, lot 99: "ECOLE FRANÇAISE. Fin du XVIII^eme siècle. Debut XIX^eme siècle . . .  Le menuet, d’après Watteau. Huile sur toile. (Restaurations). 59.5 cm x 88cm. 12/15,000 Voir la reproduction." Bought in.

 

REMARKS

Despite the marked difference in measurments, the paintings which came up in 1995 in New York and Paris are apparently one and the same. The photographs of the two are identical.

 

Although described as in the manner of Watteau, the whole of the composition is derived from a composition of Jean-Baptiste Pater, the Fete Galante with a Dancing Couple, one version of which is in the Wallace Collection. (Ironically, the Wallace Collection painting was bought by Lord Hertford at a Christies sale in 1855, where it too was wrongly sold under the name of Watteau.)

Print this Entry