Attributed to Jean Antoine Watteau

M. Gervais,
his sale, Paris, Hôtel des Commissaires-Priseurs, 26-28 November 1860, lot 699 (as Watteau);
sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 27 January 1909, lot 152 (as Watteau);
Jacques Guérin,
his sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 20-21 December 1922, lot 69 (as Watteau);
Emile Joseph-Rignault, b. 1874;
G. Aubry,
his sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 22 February 1937, lot 98, reproduced (as Watteau);
Gilbert Lévy (1884-1944),
his sale, Paris, Noveau Drouot, 6 May 1987, lot 100 (as Watteau),
where acquired by the present owner

L. Cellier, Antoine Watteau, son enfance, ses Contemporains, Valenciennes, 1867, p. 92, no. 30;
K.T. Parker and J. Mathey, Antoine Watteau, catalogue complet de son oeuvre dessiné, 2 vols., Paris, 1957, vol. I, p. 11, no. 67, reproduced (as Watteau);
P. Rosenberg, 'A Propos de Nicolas Vleughels,' Pantheon, XXXI, no. 2, April-June 1973, p. 145, note 2;
B. Hercenberg, Nicolas Vleughels:  peintre et directeur de L'Académie de France à Rome, 1668-1737, Paris, 1975, pp. 158-159, no. 339 (as Attributed to Vleughels);
M.M. Grasselli, 'The Drawings of Antoine Watteau:  Stylistic Development and Problems of Chronology' (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Havard University), 1987, vol. I, p. 36, note 27; vol. II, pp. 338 & 515, no. 221 (as Watteau), reproduced, vol. III, fig. 411;
P. Rosenberg and L-A. Prat, Antoine Watteau 1684-1721, Catalogue raisonné des dessins, 3 vols., Milan, 1996, vol. III, pp. 1260-61, no. R421, reproduced (as uncertain attribution);
M.G. Grasselli, 'Reviews:  Pierre Rosenberg and Louis-Antoine Prat, Antoine Watteau 1684-1721, Catalogue raisonné des dessins', Master Drawings, vol. XXXIX., no. 3, 2001, pp. 326-327 (as Watteau)

Laid down. A small repaired hole in the Magristrate's gown (the magistrate on the left). A small circular brown stain at the top margin towards the upper right corner. A few brown wash splashes in the lower right corner. Red chalk remains strong and vibrant. Sold in gilded frame.
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As Rosenberg and Prat have pointed out, this drawing relates to the painting, The appeal of the dissident Bishops of the Sorbonne against the Bull 'Unigenitus' (Musée de Versailles), which was executed in 1717, probably by Watteau's friend, Nicolas Vleughels.  The two figures appear, in the same poses but with their relative positions reversed, in the foreground of the painting. 

Since the drawing includes various details that do not appear in the corresponding painted figures, it cannot be a copy after the painting. The most straightforward explanation is that Vleughels, who was very close to Watteau at this time, simply borrowed two figures from a drawing by his friend, and included them in his painting, but Rosenberg and Prat consider this unconvincing, and the attribution therefore uncertain, because they see the drawing as relating more closely to Watteau's style of some years earlier, circa 1711-12. 

Margaret Morgan Grasselli does not, however, see the handling as inconsistent with Watteau's drawings of the period around 1717, and is in no doubt that this interesting study sheet is indeed an autograph work by the artist.