Colin Bailey on Getty's Contested Watteau
Head of Pierrot in The Italian Comedians In 2012 the Getty Museum bought The Italian Comedians, a painting that curator Scott Schaefer attributed to Watteau. Scholars have been split on the attribution, and the Louvre's 2024-25 Watteau exhibition showed the Getty painting as the joint work of Watteau and his follower Jean-Baptiste Pater. Now Morgan Library and Museum director Colin B. Bailey weighs in, in his review of the Louvre catalog for the New York Review of Books. Bailey contends that the Getty's Italian Comedians is entirely by Watteau. He writes: "A second painting that Watteau made in London, also entitled The Italian Comedians —acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum in 2012—remains controversial. A large canvas with five figures, it shows an engaging, boyish Pierrot, with blond hair and ruddy cheeks, holding out his hat in his right hand as if seeking a donation. To his left, a guitar-playing Mezzetin takes a bow. Harlequin, mustachioed and masked in b...
