Study for "The Romancer" (Le Conteur) (c. 1716): Art, History and Details

Study for "The Romancer" (Le Conteur) (c. 1716) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jean-Antoine Watteau (French, 1684–1721).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This sheet was a preparatory study for the painting The Romancer. An actor in the costume of Mezzetin, a stock character of the commedia dell’arte (a type of satirical theatrical entertainment of Italian origin popular in aristocratic circles in 18th-century France), interrupts a guitarist with a bold sexual advance. Another actor dressed as the French pantomime stock character Pierrot peers lasciviously over the young musician’s shoulder. A more detailed study of Pierrot’s head occupies the upper left corner of the sheet, demonstrating Jean Antoine Watteau’s experimentation with how to most effectively depict a lecherous gaze.

Object facts

• Title: Study for "The Romancer" (Le Conteur)
• Date: c. 1716
• Creator attribution: Jean-Antoine Watteau (French, 1684–1721)
• Culture: France
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: red chalk; red and black chalk (upper left figure)
• Dimensions: Sheet: 35 x 27.5 cm (13 3/4 x 10 13/16 in.); Secondary Support: 35.1 x 27.8 cm (13 13/16 x 10 15/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1928.661

A detail from the museum

Jean Antoine Watteau likely drew this sheet from a combination of life study and imagination, working from a model and adding other elements of his own creation.

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• H. S. F. “‘The Romancer,’ a Drawing by Jean Antoine Watteau.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 16, no. 10 (1929): 179–81.
• H. S. F. "Drawings in the Classic and Romantic Tradition before 1830." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 19, no. 10 (1932): 166-75.
• Milliken, William. "Silver Jubilee Exhibition." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 28, no.6 (June 1941): 88-108

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.