Old Master and British Works on Paper

Jean-Antoine Watteau

Studies of two seated ladies

VAT applies to hammer price and buyer's premium

Lot Closed

July 6, 01:02 PM GMT

Estimate

1,500 - 2,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Follower of Jean-Antoine Watteau

Studies of two seated ladies

Red and black chalk heightened with white chalk on buff paper;

bears inscription in brown ink, lower right: A.Watteau

236 by 274 mm

Sternberg Collection, sale, London, Christie's, 24 February 1928, lot 49 (as Watteau);

with Savile Gallery, London, 1928 (cat. no. 12, as Watteau);

with Richard Owen, Paris,

from whom purchased by Casimir Stralem,

by inheritance to his widow, Mrs. Casimir Stralem, and their son, Donald S. Stralem, New York

New York, Galleries of Duveen Brothers, French Drawings of the Eighteenth Century: A Loan Collection arranged by Mr. Richard Owen, 1934, no. 88 (as Watteau)

K.T. Parker and J. Mathey, Antoine Watteau, Catalogue complet de son oeuvre dessiné, Paris 1957, vol. 2, p. 311, under no 565;
P. Rosenberg and L.-A. Prat, Antoine Watteau 1684-1721. Catalogue raisonné des dessins, Milan 1996, vol. II, p. 630, under no. 382, reproduced fig. 382a (as 'copie de bonne qualité'); vol. III, pp. 1254-5, no. R 405, reproduced

As Rosenberg and Prat (and Parker and Mathey before them) noted (see Literature), the left figure on this sheet is after a drawing in the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett. It seems likely that the Berlin sheet also originally included the second figure seen here, but was subsequently cut. The original drawing by Watteau of the other figure is not now known.