WATTEAU, Jean-Antoine
(b. 1684, Valenciennes, d. 1721, Nogent-sur-Marne)

Sketch with Two Figures

1710-15
Red and black chalk, 196 x 184 mm
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

The blond Venetian woman on the left section of the table is using an ornate fork as a toothpick. For centuries, the figure caught the imagination of later painters, from Rubens to Watteau. In 1590, the Milanese painter and art writer Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo (1538-1600) used the example of this figure to highlight the Venetian painters ability to give expression to various emotions and psychological states in the figures.