Louis WATTEAU de LlLLE (1731-1798). - Lot 11

Louis WATTEAU de LlLLE (1731-1798). Troupe of Fairgoers in Front of a Farm. Oil on canvas signed and dated on the right "L. Watteau / 1785". 100 x 149.5 cm. (old restorations). Provenance : - Collection A Bigo-Daniel, Marc-en-Baroeul, 1928. - Anonymous sale, Lille (Sauvage study), June 17, 1963 (unnumbered, sold for 3600 francs). Bibliography: - A. Mabille de Poncheville, Louis et François Watteau dits Watteau de Lille, Paris, 1928, p. 45 and p. 101. - G. Maës, Les Watteau de Lille, Paris, 1998, p. 280, no. LP 382. Note: This subject of travelling acrobats was often depicted by Louis Watteau in this period, testifying to the happy daily life in the North, just before the Revolution. Our composition could be compared to the Marchand d'oublies in the Palais des beaux-arts in Lille, or to the pair in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Tournai. Let's quote Mabille de Poncheville's description of our painting: "Here, too, a fairground household stops at the threshold of a 'cense', as we say between Lys and Escaut. The man plays the flageolet; the woman, dressed in a wine-colored dress, stands motionless in the center of the composition while, standing on her shoulder, her youngest child dressed as Pierrot waves his hat, and the other two dance on their hands or sound a Basque drum. Two groups of villagers watch them, one to the right, not far from a dog-mounted monkey, the other to the left near the cense gate. A man in a blue suit, smoking a long clay pipe, is painted from life." Expert : Cabinet TURQUIN