FJK 136
Watteau Antoine (French, Valenciennes 1684–1721 Nogent-sur-Marne)
Head of a Young Girl Bowed To the Right
ca. 1716-1717
3 15/16 × 3 5/32 in. (100 × 80 mm)
Medium
Black chalk with white highlights on counter-proof in red chalk on watermark paper
Unidentified collector’s mark bottom left (Lugt 1285)
Blind stamp of mounter Adolf Stoll on mount bottom right (Lugt 2786c)
Origin
Probably Gabriel Huquier Collection (1695-1772), engraver
His sale, Paris, November 9-December 5, 1772, perhaps part of nos. 441-444
Camille Groult Collection (1837-1908)
Jean Groult, his son, Collection by descent (1868-1951)
Pierre Bordeaux-Groult Collection by descent
Sale PIASA, Paris, March 22, 2006, no. 88
Jan Krugier Collection, Monaco, JK 6637
Jan Krugier Foundation
Bibliography
GONCOURT Edmond de, Catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre peint, dessiné et gravé d'Antoine Watteau, Paris: J. Claye Imprimeur, 1875, under no. 487, p. 267.
MATHEY J., PARKER K.T., Antoine Watteau. Catalogue complet de son œuvre dessiné, Paris: F. de Nobele, 1957, vol. II, no. 770, ill.
EIDELBERG Martin P., Watteau’s drawings. Their Use and Significance, University of Princeton, 1965, New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1977, p. 200, note 9.
JEAN-RICHARD Pierrette, Musée du Louvre. Cabinet des Dessins. Collections Edmond de Rothschild. Inventaire général des Gravures. Ecole Française I. L’œuvre gravé de François Boucher dans la collection Edmond de Rothschild, Paris: éd. des musées nationaux, 1978, under no. 82, p. 44, color ill. p. 46.
GRASSELLI Margaret Morgan, The drawings of Antoine Watteau, stylistic development and problems of chronology, Ph. D. Cambridge, Harvard University, 1987, unpublished, p. 294, note 76.
ROSENBERG Pierre, PRAT Louis-Antoine, Antoine Watteau (1684-1721). Catalogue raisonné des dessins, Milan: Leonardo Arte, 1996, vol. II, p. 870, no. 517, ill.
Exhibitions
Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; Paris, Grand-Palais; Berlin, Schloss Charlottenburg, Watteau 1684-1721, exh. cat. 1984-1985, p. 416, fig. 14, pp. 423-424, fig. 5.
Munich, Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Das Ewige Auge - Von Rembrandt bis Picasso. Meisterwerke aus der Sammlung Jan Krugier und Marie-Anne Krugier-Poniatowski, 2007, p. 136, no. 60, color ill. p. 137.
Notes
This portrait was engraved in reverse by François Boucher for the Figures de différents caractères under no. 116 (P. Rosenberg, L.A. Prat, 1996, p. 870, fig. 517a).
[…] This sheet may have been part of a sketchbook in which the artist gathered his studies as a repertory for his paintings. (P. Rosenberg, pp. 412-415). In 1748, Caylus explains that Watteau “used to draw sketches in a bound book which he would refer to when he wanted to paint. He would then choose the figures which would work best in his paintings.” Pierre Rosenberg linked this head study with a figure in L’amour paisible (Berlin, Charlottenburg) [but both Eidelberg and Grasseli contest this comparison.
If the hairdo is different, the position and the illumination of the face are quite close and similar] to another one in La récréation galante (Berlin, Gemälde Galerie). (P. Rosenberg, L.A. Prat, 1996, p. 870). This figure can also be related to the woman who turns in L’amour paisible commissioned by Doctor Mead, lost painting known though an engraving (P. Rosenberg, p. 423, fig. 1). Two technically similar drawings with the same stamp which might correspond to Gabriel Huquier’s collector’s mark were engraved by Boucher for the Figures de différents caractères (P. Rosenberg, L.A. Prat, 1996, nos. 518-519 ill.).
Piasa, Dessins anciens et modernes du xvie au xixe siècle, Paris, March 2006 (translated from French)
Request for information/loan
The Jan Krugier Foundation is devoted to increasing the impact of the collection of drawings through regular loans to major exhibitions. Loan applications should include a complete presentation of the project.