Colin Bailey on Getty's Contested Watteau
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| 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 black, can be seen hiding behind them. There is no question that the beautifully executed central figure of Pierrot is by Watteau. A preparatory drawing for this figure with his outstretched arm in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem, shows the actor, but with a pinched and mean-spirited expression quite unlike the sympathetic clown in the finished work. Infrared reflectography has confirmed that Watteau initially followed his drawing and painted Pierrot with precisely the same face but altered the canvas as he completed it. The surrounding figures are not handled as suavely. The faces of the two actors at right are painted more broadly—they might have stepped out of a canvas by Frans Hals. [Guillaume] Faroult, in his discussion of the Getty picture, which he catalogs as 'attributed to Watteau, Jean-Baptiste Pater and an anonymous collaborator,' expresses the hope that the 'confrontation' with the Louvre’s Pierrot in the exhibition would help resolve the issue once and for all. In fact, as Alan Wintermute first proposed in 2012, seeing the paintings from the National Gallery of Art and the Getty in fairly close proximity made it possible to confirm that they are both by the same hand, undeniably Watteau’s alone."
For background, see Watteau Show Snubs "Italian Comedians" and Paris Ponders a Watteau Puzzle
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| Antoine Watteau (?), The Italian Comedians, about 1720. Getty Museum |
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| Watteau's other Italian Comedians, about 1720. National Gallery of Art, Washington |
Comments
If I didn't know the authenticity of one of the 2 works had been questioned, I'd have guessed it was the National Gallery's.
I sometimes think that the English taste for extremely large portraits may have pushed Watteau toward creating these unusually big pictures. I don’t generally like Watteau all that much, but after seeing the Getty painting so many times, I’ve developed a real sympathy for Pierrot. I almost wish I could hand him a coin. And I honestly can’t see how Pater, or any of the contemporaries, could have pulled something like that off. Yes it does not have the same sense as the little paintings, but the Getty painting is very special.
William Poundstone:
You're thinking of Andromeda Chained to the Rock, bought as a van Dyck. LACMA curator J. Patrice Marandel faulted it for having "the biggest belly button in the history of belly buttons."
See L.A. Times piece: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-may-04-et-vandyck4-story.html
The Ahmanson Foundation bought Andromeda in 1985 for over $1 million. By 1998 a couple of van Dyck scholars had rejected it, and LACMA took it off view. It's now listed as "(Imitator of) Sir Anthony van Dyck." [End quote]
Goes to show my observational skills. For some reason I liked the pseudo-van-Dyck more than the National Gallery's authentic Watteau.
Pigs really do fly.
Great thanks.
Incidentally, my favorite Hubert Robert is held by LACMA:
https://collections.lacma.org/node/178489
> Hubert Robert
> is held by
> LACMA:
Of course, "not currently on pubic view."
Even when the Geffen opens, that won't necessarily change either. Even when the Resnick Pavilion opened in 2010, plenty of exhibits better left in BCAM were still slotted into the Resnick.
I get that the permanent collection has plenty of study pieces, works better left in storage than put on display. Or not enough items that would make sense in various galleries. I also get that LACMA has a tight budget.
None of that, however, explains why they keep installing way too many Anycity-USA shows of contemporary art. It's still a bit less of a joke right now because, okay, the Geffen Galleries have yet to open. So there's still some room to maneuver and make excuses. But the clock is ticking.
Meanwhile, I notice the museum has posted:
> LACMA has recently received
> a landmark gift of 90 works
> by Ardeshir Mohassess,
> significantly expanding the
> museum’s modern and
> contemporary Iranian art
> collection.
Sheesh, even works from the Middle East are contemporary, not from the 1800s (or even early 1900s) or pre-1700s, etc. The big-time museums of America and the world must be green with envy.
This is not France; this is a disgrace. One could argue that the government can't afford to keep the palace open. And I expect the Louvre thinks that most people could care less about French art; there's a lot sexier stuff to take your selfie next to.
But the shock came when I found that the Salon Carré (the "Square Room"...but it's not square...don't ask) was also shut, albeit for a day or 2, for lack of staff. If the place was on fire and the art of only 1 gallery could be saved, I would choose the works in the Salon Carré. I would argue that the French have a duty to exempt areas like the Salon Carré from their centime-pinching austerities.
When you're ready to shut off artists who created the Western tradition in fine art -- Cimabue, Giotto, Fra Angelico, Uccello -- you have lost your right to claim you are the world's principal art museum.