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This small painting and its pair, Chinese Woman of Kouei Tchéou, are the only known surviving works that formed part of a decorative scheme executed by Watteau for a small room in the Château de la Muette, a 16th century hunting lodge on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne.
Watteau created thirty paintings for the room, known from a series of thirty prints. The engravers included François Boucher, Edme Jeaurat and Michel-Guillaume Aubert,
Datable to 1708-16, the decoration for La Muette is one of the earliest examples of chinoiserie used in a decorative scheme in France. Watteau's designs made a profound impact on other artists such as Boucher who took up similar themes in his own work in the 1730s and 1740s.
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