Watteau Abecedario: X. Scene with Commedia dell'arte Figures

X. Scene with Commedia dell'arte Figures

Entered May 2020

Whereabouts unknown

Medium unknown

Measurements unknown

PROVENANCE

The provenance of this painting is unknown. A photograph of it is in the files of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Dokumentatie.

REMARKS

fig — Unknown artist, *Scene with Commedia dell'arte Figures* (detail).

fig — Etienne Jeaurat after Watteau, *Pierrot content* (detail), engraving, 1728.

This picture is a pastiche after several of Watteau’s compositions. The central group of the five seated figures as well as the Mezzetin and Harlequin peering out from the shrubbery are taken from Watteau’s Pierrot content. Watteau’s original painting and the Jeaurat engraving after it are in the same sense but, undoubtedly, the pasticheur relied on the engraving. The four figures at the left are from another source, but the photo is too blurred to read them clearly.

fig — Unknown artist, *Scene with Commedia dell’arte Figures* (detail).

fig — Antoine Cardon the Elder after Jean-Baptiste Pater, *Le Bain rustique* (detail), engraving.

The fountain at the right side of the painting, ornamented with a sculpture of a putto holding a jar with cascading water, is based on a design by Pater. Most likely it was taken not from Pater’s painting in the Arenberg collection, but, rather the engraving after it by Antoine Cardon the Elder. In that print, Pater’s composition was wrongly attributed to Watteau, thus tricking the pasticheur who undoubtedly was depending on that information to make his pastiche convincing.