Two Studies of an Actor
ArtistAntoine Watteau
Yearc. 1716–1721
See § Provenance and dating
CataloguePM 914; RP 653
MediumSanguine, black, and white chalks on brownish paper, laid down
Subjectpresumed to be either the Abbé Pierre-Maurice Haranger or Pierre Le Noir, sieur de La Thorillière
See § Identity of the sitter
Dimensions26 cm × 37.2 cm (10 in × 14.6 in)
LocationKupferstichkabinett, Berlin
AccessionKdZ 2319

Two Studies of an Actor is the name[note 1] given to a sheet of drawings in the trois crayons technique by the French Rococo artist Antoine Watteau. Dated between 1716 and 1721, the sheet was once in the collection of Watteau's friend, the manufacturer and publisher Jean de Jullienne; passing through a number of private collectors, it was acquired in 1874 by the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, where it remains.

The sheet consists of two compositional half-length studies of a sitting old man wearing a hat, holding a cane in the left hand; the left figure has the old man shown en face, and the right one respectively has him shown in a three-quarters turn. In scholarship, the sheet is noted as an example of Watteau's approach with multiple treatment of a single figure, compared to these of Anthony van Dyck and Philippe de Champaigne found in their respective portraits of Charles I of England and Cardinal Richelieu.

The identity of the sitter remains somewhat ambiguous among Watteau scholars; two of the artist's contemporaries were thought to be the sitter: the Catholic priest Pierre-Maurice Haranger and the Comédie-Française player Pierre Le Noir, sieur de La Thorillière. Coming from either of these identities, the sheet is related to numerous paintings and drawings by Watteau.

Provenance and dating

In the 18th century, the sheet belonged to Watteau's friend and patron, the manufacturer and publisher Jean de Jullienne; it was said by Edmond de Goncourt that the sheet was lot 787,[note 2] sold for 82 livres at the sale held after Jullienne's death in Spring 1767, described as "Deux hommes en habit de paysan; ils sont assis, la main gauche de chacun est posée sur une canne en béquille."[2]

After remaining obscure for a century, the sheet resurfaced in the 1870s, passing through numerous private collectors known only by name. By 1871, it was in possession of a certain De Vos; then it passed to another owner, a Rotterdam-based collector D. Vis Blokhuyzen. After Blokhuyzen's death, the sheet was sold as lot 664 at auction on October 23, 1871 to the German entrepreneur Barthold Suermondt (1818–1887); as part of Suermondt's collection, the sheet has been acquired for the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, in 1874.[2][3]

In a 1984 monograph on Watteau, Marianne Roland Michel dates the sheet as earlier as c. 1716–1717, relying on the drawing style.[4] in the 1984–1985 exhibition catalogue, the National Gallery of Art curator Margaret Morgan Grasselli dated the drawings c. 1716;[5] in a later 1987 dissertation on Watteau's drawings, she re-attributed the sheet to final months of Watteau's life, c. 1721.[6] In the 1996 catalogue raisonné, Pierre Rosenberg and Louis-Antoine Prat give the sheet an earlier dating of c. 1720.[7]

In the 1720s, François Boucher had the sheet engraved in reverse as two separate etchings; the etching after the left figure was published in 1726 as plate 69 in volume one of the Figures de différents caractères, while the etching after the right figure, in which Boucher notably replaced the hat with a skullcap, was respectively published in 1728 as plate 198 in the said anthology's volume two.[5] Boucher's etching of the right figure has been later reproduced by Claude Du Bosc, captioned La Tourilere comédien.[8] Prints after the Berlin sheet were recorded in the 1875 catalogue raisonné of Watteau's art compiled by Edmond de Goncourt;[9] various reissues of Edmond and Jules de Goncourt's anthology L'art du dix-huitième siècle mention "la planche des «Différents caractères» qui passe pour représenter l'acteur La Thorillière," which is likely a reference to Du Bosc's print rather than Boucher's ones.[10] Besides from prints, there is a sheet of sanguine studies in the Louvre that notably features a partial copy after the left figure of the Berlin sheet.[11]

Identity of the sitter

Aside from Goncourt's notes, it is thought[12] that in an 1896 article published in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, the playwright and poet Gaston Schéfer was the first to try and identify the sitter of the drawings, available to him through Boucher's etchings. In a copy of the Figures de différents caractères held by the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Schéfer discovered that the impression of folio 198[13] has an inscription by eighteenth-century hand, thought to be that of Pierre-Jean Mariette, saying "Portrait de l'abbé Larancher (struck-through) Haranger Chanoine de Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, ami de Watteau." From the inscription, Schéfer suggested that while the attire appears to be a theatrical one, the sitter was actually a priest, namely the Abbé Pierre-Maurice Haranger (ca. 1655–1735), canon at the Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois who was one of Watteau's closest friends.[note 3] It has been stated by Schéfer that to Watteau, it was not a controversial thing to depict a Catholic priest wearing an unusual attire, for it wasn't so to the Church; Schéfer provides a similar example of Charles-Nicolas Cochin who produced a drawing of his priest friend, the Abbé François-Emmanuel Pommyer, wearing a peasant dress. Aware of Du Bosc's print, Schéfer said that the priest's appearance was fine enough to make one confuse him with an actor; it has also been presumed by Schéfer that a study of Haranger, similar to the Berlin sheet, was probably used for the rightmost figure in a painting by Watteau, The Coquettes.[19]

In the 1920s, Schéfer's point was objected by Émile Dacier, Albert Vuaflart and Jacques Herold — the group behind the four-volume study of prints after Watteau's paintings; Dacier, Vuaflart, and Herold suggested that Watteau would hardly had an intention to depict a priest in what the scholars supposed to be a peasant or theatrical dress. In contrary to Schéfer's attribution that was based on a hand-written inscription, they relied on the engraved inscription from Du Bosc's copy after Boucher that claimed the Comédie-Française player Pierre Le Noir, sieur de la Thorillière (1659–1731),[note 4] to be the sitter.[23] These objections caused a debate among Watteau scholars, noticeably complicated by the lack of surviving and/or authentic portraits of both supposed sitters;[note 5] part of scholars accepted Schéfer's attribution,[30] while some other authors have adopted Dacier and Vuaflart's one.[31]

Exhibition history

List of exhibitions featuring the work
Year Title Location Cat. no.
1950 Le dessin français de Fouquet à Cezanne Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris 60[32]
1984–1985 Watteau 1684–1721 National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin D. 72[33]
2011 Watteau: The Drawings Royal Academy of Arts, London 86
General references: Grasselli, Rosenberg & Parmantier 1984, p. 142.

Notes

  1. ↑ As a consequence of various attributions and preferences by scholars and curators, the sheet is known under many names in literature, such as following:
  2. ↑ Parker & Mathey 1957–1958, vol. 2, p. 378, cat. no. 914, and Grasselli, Rosenberg & Parmantier 1984, p. 142, incorrectly list the lot number as 737.[1]
  3. ↑ Since 1681, Abbé Pierre-Maurice Haranger (also spelled Harancher[14]: 81  and Harenger;[15]: 1021  ca. 1655 – May 10, 1735) served as sub-deacon in the diocese of Paris and canon at the Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois, located close to the Louvre Palace, the seat of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. The inventory taken after Haranger's death, discovered and published by Jeannine Baticle in the mid-1980s,[16] shows his taste of furniture and paintings, as well as his relationship with Watteau, for whom Haranger arranged the final home at Nogent-sur-Marne. The inventory also questioned the generally accepted theory, based on Edme-François Gersaint's account, that Watteau had divided his drawings among the Abbé Haranger, Jean Jullienne, Gersaint, and royal councilor Nicolas Henin; instead, it confirms the account given in Antoine de Laroque's obituary published in the August 1721 issue of Mercure de France, according to which Watteau left the most of drawings in his possession to the Abbé.[14]: 81  Haranger's collection, that included two paintings by Watteau, The Worried Lover and The Dreamer, also estimated about thousand drawings by the artist; upon the Abbé's death, it has been sold by his relatives.[17][18]
  4. ↑ Pierre Le Noir, sieur de la Thorillière (September 3, 1659 — September 18, 1731), also called La Thorillière Jr. or La Thorillière fils, was the son of François Le Noir, sieur de La Thorillière, a prominent actor associated with Molière’s company. He joined the latter in 1671 as a touring player, and passed into the Comédie-Française following its establishment in 1680; in 1684, Le Noir became a sociétaire of the Comédie-Française. Early in his career, Le Noir performed secondary tragic and comic characters, before going to a greater success into à manteau roles he played following the company-mate Jean-Baptiste Raisin's death in 1693. In November 1685, Le Noir had married Caterina Biancolelli, the Columbina of the original Comédie-Italienne and daughter of Domenico Bianconelli, the said troupe's Harlequin; he was also the brother-in-law to his company-mate, the playwright and actor Dancourt. Le Noir made his last stage appearance in August 1731, shortly before his death a month later; he was succeeded by the son, Anne-Maurice Le Noir.[20][21][22]
  5. ↑ During the Watteau tercentenary exhibition in 1984–1985, Grasselli stated that "[… ]portraits of neither La Thorillière nor Haranger are known;"[5] nonetheless, there are numerous artwork from the late 17th to the mid-19th centuries, associated with both of the supposed sitters. For the Abbé Haranger, it is known that in 1684, he sitted for a portrait by Hyacinthe Rigaud; however, that portrait was not present in the Abbé's inventory.[24][25] In the early 20th century, a portrait of priest attributed once to Watteau and later to Nicolas Lancret, now in the National Museum of Fine Arts, Algiers, has been claimed to be a depiction of the Abbé Haranger.[26]
    For La Thorillière, it has been claimed by the 19th-century etcher Frédéric-Désiré Hillemacher that his portrait etching of the actor, published in the 1858 book La Troupe de Molière, was executed after an oil painting by Watteau's master, Claude Gillot;[27] aside from Hillemacher's etching, a pastel portrait of La Thorillière was cited in Iconographie Moliéresque (1876).[28] It has also been said by Paulette Choné that an etching after a costume sketch by Gillot, though captioned as depicting La Thorillière Sr., was actually supposed to depict La Thorillière Jr..[29]

References

  1. ↑ Baticle 1985, pp. 56, 60 n. 11, Rosenberg & Prat 1996, vol. 2, p. 1116, cat. no. 653.
  2. 1 2 Goncourt 1875, p. 253: "Le dessin aux trois crayons de cette étude avec quelques changements et deux fois répété, le dessin provenant des collections de Vos, Blockhuisen, est actuellement en possession de M. Suermondt. C'est incontestablement le n° 787 de la vente Julienne : « Deux hommes en habit de paysan; ils sont assis, la main gauche de chacun est posée sur une canne en béquille. » Ce double dessin aux trois crayons avec deux autres études de têtes était vendu 82 1. 2 s."
  3. ↑ Grasselli, Rosenberg & Parmantier 1984, p. 142; Rosenberg & Prat 1996, vol. 2, p. 1116, cat. no. 653.
  4. ↑ Roland Michel 1984, pp. 55, 135, 253.
  5. 1 2 3 Grasselli, Rosenberg & Parmantier 1984, p. 142.
  6. ↑ Grasselli 1987, pp. 424–425, cited in Rosenberg & Prat 1996, vol. 2, p. 1116, cat. no. 653
  7. ↑ Rosenberg & Prat 1996, vol. 2, p. 1116, cat. no. 653, cited in Rosenberg, Prat & Eidelberg 2011, p. 187.
  8. ↑ Goncourt 1875, p. 72, cat. no. 74; Dacier & Vuaflart 1922, p. 141, cited in Grasselli, Rosenberg & Parmantier 1984, p. 478.
  9. ↑ Goncourt 1875, pp. 72, 253, 283
  10. ↑ Goncourt & Goncourt 1880, p. 55.
  11. ↑ Parker & Mathey 1957–1958, vol. 2, p. 378, cat. no. 914; Rosenberg & Prat 1996, vol. 2, p. 1116, cat. no. 653, fig. 653d.
  12. ↑ Grasselli, Rosenberg & Parmantier 1984, p. 141.
  13. ↑ Rosenberg & Prat 1996, vol. 2, p. 1116, cat. no. 653, fig. 653c, reproduces folio 198 from the Arsenal's copy of the Figures de différents caractères.
  14. 1 2 Laroque, Antoine de (August 1721). "Les Beaux-arts". Mercure de France (in French). pp. 81–83 – via Google Books.
  15. ↑ "Morts et mariages". Mercure de France (in French). May 1735. pp. 1018–1023 – via Google Books. See also Herold & Vuaflart 1929, pp. 117, 118, 144; Roland Michel 1984, pp. 46, 54, 55–56, 173, 173, 243, 253, 269.
  16. ↑ "Inventaire après décès du chanoine Haranger, 17 mai 1735". Revue de l'Art (in French). 69 (69): 62–68. 1985. doi:10.3406/rvart.1985.347525. ISBN 2-222-96-415-6. ISSN 0035-1326 – via Persee.fr.
  17. ↑ Parmantier-Lallement, Nicole (1996). "Haranger, Pierre-Maurice, Abbé". In Turner, Jane (ed.). The Dictionary of Art. Vol. 14. New York: Grove's Dictionaries. p. 162. ISBN 1-884446-00-0 – via the Internet Archive.
  18. ↑ Rosenberg 2001, pp. 31–33; Glorieux 2002, pp. 430–436.
  19. ↑ Schéfer 1896, p. 185: "L'étude n" 198, gravée par Boucher, nous représente le barbon de la Comédie italienne, posé de trois quarts, assis sur une chaise. Il est coiffé d'une perruque à cheveux longs. Une autre étude (n° 69), également gravée par Boucher, le figure de face, un large chapeau sur la tète. Sous l'étude n" 198, Mariette a écrit : « Portrait de l'abbé Larancher. » C'est ainsi qu'il est nommé également dans le Mercure. Mais il a effacé le nom et l'a corrigé par « Aranger », selon l'orthographe de l'Abecedario. Un prêtre sous un tel habit, voilà qui paraît surprenant; mais au XVIIIe siècle l'Eglise avait sa bonhomie. Watteau ne croyait pas plus faire œuvre de scandale en déguisant l'abbé Haranger sous la perruque de Géronte que Cochin en dessinant l'abbé Pommyer sous l'habit du Paysan de Gandelu. D'ailleurs, l'abbé Haranger avait une si bonne physionomie de théâtre que l'on rencontre son portrait sous un autre nom : « La Thourilère, La Thorillière. » Peut-être même une autre étude de l'abbé Haranger a-t-elle servi au vieillard du tableau des Coquettes. Mais ici la ressemblance n'est pas assez directe pour qu'on puisse rien affirmer;" Fourcaud 1901, p. 345: "[…] qu'au vieil homme en cheveux plats de Coquettes qui pour voir... il semble bien que ce digne chanoine de Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois ait prêté son visage, […]"
  20. ↑ Mongrédien, Georges (1972) [1961]. Dictionnaire biographique des comédiens français du XVIIe siècle (in French). Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique. pp. 107–108. OCLC 654213036 – via the Internet Archive.
  21. ↑ Lancaster, Henry Carrington (1966). A History of French Dramatic Literature in the Seventeenth Century. Pt. IV: The Period of Racine, 1673–1700. Vol. 1. New York: Gordian Press. ch. 1, p. 19 n. 12. OCLC 1149249584.
  22. ↑ Grasselli, Rosenberg & Parmantier 1984, p. 478
  23. ↑ Dacier 1921, p. 215; Herold & Vuaflart 1929, p. 117.
  24. ↑ Roman, Joseph, ed. (1919). Le livre de raison du peintre Hyacinthe Rigaud (in French). Paris: H. Laurens. p. 7. OCLC 1048232450 – via the Internet Archive.
  25. ↑ Roland Michel 1984, p. 55; Baticle 1985, pp. 55–56.
  26. ↑ For further discussion, read Eidelberg, Martin (February 2017). "X. Abbé Haranger". A Watteau Abecedario. Archived from the original on October 3, 2020. Retrieved April 10, 2021.
  27. ↑ Hillemacher, Fréderic-Désire (1869) [1858]. Galerie historique des portraits des comédiens de la troupe de Molière (in French). Lyon: N. Scheuring. pp. 124–125 (pp. 102–103 in the 1858 edition). OCLC 697769184 – via the Internet Archive.
  28. ↑ Lacroix, Paul (1876) [1872]. Iconographie Moliéresque. Paris: A. Fontaine. pp. 165–166. OCLC 1046593821 – via the Internet Archive.
  29. ↑ Alsteens, Stijn, ed. (2009). Raphael to Renoir: Drawings from the Collection of Jean Bonna. New York, New Haven: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale University Press. p. 148, cat. no. 66. ISBN 978-0-300-14207-5. OCLC 1036800910 – via the Internet Archive.
  30. ↑ These include Fourcaud 1901, p. 345; Josz 1904, p. 181; Pilon 1912, p. 40; Gillet 1921, p. 90, cited in Dacier 1921, p. 214; Hildebrandt 1923, pp. 73, 132; Toney 1963, p. XIV, pl. 118.
  31. ↑ These include Parker 1970, pp. 21, 47; Parker & Mathey 1957–1958, p. 378, vol. 2, cat. no. 914; Nemilova 1964, pp. 181–182, reiterated as Zolotov 1973, p. 139, translated into English as Zolotov 1985, p. 98.
  32. ↑ Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris (1950). Le dessin français de Fouquet à Cézanne (exhibition catalogue). Paris: Éditions des musées nationaux. cat. no. 60, pl. 5.
  33. ↑ Brookner 1985, p. 118.

Sources

Further reading

  • Croft-Murray, Edward (March 1974). "Watteau's Design for a Fun-Leaf". Apollo. 99 (145): 176–181.
  • Lauterbach, Iris (2008). Antoine Watteau, 1684-1721. Back to Visual Basics. Köln: Taschen. p. 69. ISBN 978-3-8228-5318-4. OCLC 1164836547 – via the Internet Archive.
  • Nemilova, I. S. (1970). "Картина Ватто «Актёры французской комедии» и проблема портрета в творчестве художника [Watteau's painting Actors of the Comédie-Française and the matter of portrait in the artist's work]". In Izergina, A. N.; Nikulin, N. N. (eds.). Западноевропейское искусство [Western European Art] (in Russian). Leningrad: Aurora. pp. 145–157. OCLC 837241769.
  • Roland Michel, Marianne (1987). "Watteau et les Figures de différents caractères". In Moureau, François; Grasselli, Margaret (eds.). Antoine Watteau, 1684-1721: le peintre, son temps et sa légende. Paris, Genève: Champion — Slatkin. pp. 117–127. ISBN 2852030381. OCLC 468860156.
  • Vetter, Andreas W. (2005). …von sanften Tönen bezaubert!: Antoine Watteau – "Venezianische Feste" (exhibition catalogue) (in German). Braunschweig: Herzog Anton-Ulrich Museum. p. 16. ISBN 3-922279-61-9.
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