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X. Jullienne en jardinier

Entered January 2017

Whereabouts unknown

Oil on canvas

115 x 94 cm

 

PROVENANCE

Paris, sale, Hôtel Drouot, March 26, 1923, lot 107: “WATTEAU (Attribué à Antoine) . . . Portrait presumé de M. de Jullienne répresenté en jardinier.  Le corps tourné vers la droite, le visage souriant, il est coiffé d’un chapeau de paille, sous son habit vert, il porte un gilet rose. Son bras gauche est appuyé sur un panier rempli de fruits, de sa main droite ouverte, il semble donner une explication. Toile. Haut.: 1m 15; Larg.: 0m 94.”

 

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Washington, Paris, Berlin, Watteau 1684-1721 (1984), under cat. 67.

 

REMARKS

When the so-called Portrait of Jullienne now in the Louvre appeared at auction in 1972, this and several other portraits were wrongly associated with the provenance of the Louvre painting. However, before the sale took place, a separate insert sheet was printed that repudiated such associations.

In 1984, when Rosenberg discussed the Louvre painting, he rightly dismissed the picture sold in 1923 as having nothing to do with the Louvre portrait. Indeed, the sitter in this otherwise unknown portrait was shown informally as a gardener, dressed in a straw hat and gesticulating with his hand. This clearly does not accord with the work acquired by the Louvre.

The Jullienne en jardinier was incorrectly linked with the Louvre portrait (then in the Chazaud collection) because both were supposedly by Watteau and both supposedly portrayed Jullienne. In the case of the Louvre painting, neither claim is held any longer. It seems likely that if the painting sold in 1923 were to resurface, neither claim would prove valid. 

 

 

 

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