Watteau Abecedario: A Game of Blind Man’s Buff

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Watteau &
His Circle

X. A Game of Blind Man’s Buff

Entered August 2018

Whereabouts unknown

Material unknown (presumably oil on canvas)

122.5 x 91.5 cm

PROVENANCE

London, Christie’s South Kensington, November 29, 1990, lot 308: “Follower of Antoine Watteau / A Game of Blind Man’s Buff / 48¼ x 36in (122.5 x 91.5cm) £2,000-4,000”. Sold for £5,280.

REMARKS

fig — Anonymous artist, *A Game of Blind Man's Buff.*

fig — Jean-Baptiste Pater, *A Game of Blind Man’s Buff,* oil on canvas, 57 x 45.6 cm. London, Wallace Collection.

The attribution of this painting should not be to the school of Watteau but, rather, to the school of Pater. In fact, it is a copy of Pater’s Game of Blind Man’s Buff in the Wallace Collection. A comparison between the figures in this work and those in the Wallace Collection’s painting reveals how weak this copy is. Although Pater and his shop produced many repetitions of a composition, qualitatively, this picture is still further removed. Whereas such replicas tend to be smaller than their models, in this instance the copy is more than twice the size of the original.