Study for "The Romancer" (Le Conteur)
c. 1716
- Medium
- red chalk; red and black chalk (upper left figure)
- Dimensions
- 35 × 27.5 cm
- Status
- In Museum Collection
- Collect24 Art ID
- C24-192283
This sheet was a preparatory study for the painting The Romancer. An actor in the costume of Mezzetin, a stock character of the commedia dell’arte (a type of satirical theatrical entertainment of Italian origin popular in aristocratic circles in 18th-century France), interrupts a guitarist with a bold sexual advance. Another actor dressed as the French pantomime stock character Pierrot peers lasciviously over the young musician’s shoulder. A more detailed study of Pierrot’s head occupies the upper left corner of the sheet, demonstrating Jean Antoine Watteau’s experimentation with how to most …
Provenance
Allen Fund, 1928.661
Registry history
- c. 1716 — Recorded in the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art — drawings
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