Monographic Exhibition to Rediscover Watteau at the Louvre
Monographic Exhibition to Rediscover Watteau at the Louvre
From October 16, 2024 to February 3, 2025 the Louvre Museum is organizing a Watteau monographic exhibition: "A New Look at Watteau," to celebrate the restoration of one of his most famous masterpiece "Le Pierrot", also called "Le Gilles".
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The "A New Look at Watteau. An actor with no lines Pierrot, know as Gilles." exhibition (in French "Revoir Watteau. Un comédien sans répliques Pierrot, dit Le Gilles.") is organized by the Louvre to celebrate the conservation work of its "Le Pierrot" masterpièce. Le Pierrot, also called "Le Gilles," is probably the most famous Watteau painting, along with Pilgrimage to Cythera (in French Pélerinage à l'île de Cythère) which is also in the Louvre collection).
The restoration of the painting was performed by the Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France (C2RMF).
Watteau's "Le Pierrot" before restoration. You will discover in the Louvre exhibition this iconic Watteau work in its former splendor, as it is now after the C2RMF restoration.
The exhibition displays 65 works, including seven paintings by Watteau; the rest are contemporary or more recent related works (paintings, drawings, engravings, books, photographs and film excerpts).
Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684 -1721) is one of the most prominent French painters. Indeed, he passed the baton from the waning Baroque style to the new Rococo one, inventing the genre of "Fêtes Galantes."
Watteau was strongly influenced by the Italian commedia dell'arte. In Le Pierrot, Watteau depicts a number of actors portraying commedia dell'arte, Pierrot being the main one in the foreground. Despite being one of Watteau's major and most famous works, Le Pierrot is a very specific Watteau work as it was only discovered under Napoleon Ier, it is then roaded of mysteries.
The Louvre exhibition, based on the recent discoveries of the restoration, is there to lift part of the veil...
Where: Louvre Museum, Sully wing, Level 1, salle de la Chapelle.
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Unless otherwise noted, images are from The Yorck Project (2002). GFDL