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X. Fête Galante with a Woman Dancing

Entered July 2020; revised May 2021 

 

Whereabouts unknown

Oil on canvas

69 x 83 cm

 

PROVENANCE

Munich, Occam-Antiquitäten, c. 1972

 

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Weltkunst, 23 (December 1, 1972), 1828.

Eidelberg,”Philippe Mercier and the Miles Master” (2013).

 

REMARKS

When this painting was publicized in 1972, it was attributed to the workshop of Watteau and dated c. 1730. It was claimed that traces of a signature were visible. While following the general format of French fêtes galantes with music-making and dancing, this picture is unusual in showing only a woman dancing, without a male companion. However, the painting may not be French but, rather, perhaps German in origin.

 

In fact, it very much resembles the work of an anonymous artist whom we have dubbed the Miles Masters. The off balance of the dancer, the unattractive features of the faces, even the way the dancer holds her bunched-up skirt—all these characteristics link this painting to those which we have assigned to the Miles Master.