Artist · 17 prints
Jean-Antoine Watteau Prints
About Jean-Antoine Watteau
Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684–1721) was a French painter, baptised on 10 October 1684 in Valenciennes, in northern France. He arrived in Paris in 1702 and trained with the painter Claude Gillot and the decorator Claude Audran III, and he learned much from Rubens and the Flemish and Dutch painters. He joined the French Academy as a probationer in 1712 and became a full member in 1717. Watteau died young, on 18 July 1721, at Nogent-sur-Marne near Paris, possibly of tuberculosis.
Watteau invented the fête galante, a small painting of elegantly dressed people courting and making music in a dreamy park or landscape. The Academy created a new category for his reception piece, Pilgrimage to Cythera (1717), now in the Louvre. He also painted the stock characters of Italian comedy, such as Pierrot and Harlequin. His last great work, Gersaint's Shop Sign (about 1720–21), made for a Paris art dealer, is in Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin. Nicolas Lancret and Jean-Baptiste Pater carried on the themes Jean-Antoine Watteau began.
Jean-Antoine Watteau prints: reproductions of paintings by the French Rococo painter Jean-Antoine Watteau, made between about 1706 and 1720. The collection includes The Embarkation for Cythera (1717), Fêtes Vénitiennes (1718), Les Plaisirs du Bal (1715), Mezzetin (1718) and The Italian Comedians (1720).
This selection centres on the fête galante: couples in silks talking, dancing and making music in parks and garden terraces, as in The Love Lesson, Les Charmes de la vie and The Feast of Love. It also includes his theatre pictures of the Italian and French comedians and the musician Mezzetin. Soft greens, golden light and pale pinks and blues recur.
The soft, light palettes suit bedrooms, living rooms and dressing rooms; the music and dance scenes work well in a dining room or music room. All prints are museum-quality reproductions, available unframed or framed with acrylic glazing, with free shipping and import duties covered.
