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

Party in the Open Air

1718-20
Oil on canvas, 111 x 163 cm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin

In this unfinished painting, lovers in various degrees of engagement are in a park whose Baroque statuary group - an elaborate marble showing putti clambering about a goat - symbolizes passion's exigency. While the dance of love animates this canvas, its completion was stayed by that of death.