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

Actors from the Comédie Française

c. 1720
Oil on canvas, 57 x 73 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Until the end of the seventeenth century the theater of the great tragic playwrights and of Molière inspired painters little or not at all, apart from illustrated editions. Change occurred when Claude Gillot and his pupil Antoine Watteau drew a great deal on 'commedia del'arte' characters, which had been familiar to the French public for a century, though mainly on a burlesque level. The Italian Commedia dell'Arte troupe, which had been banned in 1697, was reestablished in 1716. Watteau's Actors from the Comédie Française, a light, silvery canvas, gives an idea of their theatrical costumes and gestures.