Antoine Watteau: References & Edit History

The great critical studies of Watteau from the late 19th and early 20th centuries include Edmond de Goncourt, Catalogue raisonné de l’oeuvre peint, dessiné et gravé d’Antoine Watteau (1875); Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt, L’Art du dix-huitième siècle, 3rd ed., rev. and enlarged, 2 vol. (1880–82); John W. Mollett, Watteau (1883); Emil Hannover, Antoine Watteau (1889), in German; Paul Mantz, Antoine Watteau (1892), in French; Claude Phillips, Antoine Watteau, new and rev. ed. (1907); Edgcumbe Staley (John Edgcumbe Staley), Watteau: Master-Painter of the “Fêtes galantes” (1901); Gabriel Séailles, Watteau (1901, reissued 1923), in French; E. Heinrich Zimmermann (ed.), Watteau: Des Meisters Werke in 182 Abbildungen (1912); Louis Gillet, Watteau: un grand maître du XVIII^e siècle, 4th ed. (1943); and Sacheverell Sitwell, Antoine Watteau (1925). For the great critical interest in the work of Watteau that arose among scholars after the 1920s, the following works should be consulted: Charles Kunstler, Watteau, l’enchanteur (1936); Gilbert W. Barker, Antoine Watteau (1939); A.E. Brinckmann, J.A. Watteau (1943), in German; René Huyghe and Hélène Adhémar, Watteau: sa vie, son oeuvre (1950); M. Gauthier, Watteau (1960; originally published in French, 1959); and René Huyghe, Watteau (1970; also published as Watteau’s Universe, 1976; originally published in French, 1968). New interpretations of The Embarkation for Cythera have been proposed by Michael Levey, “The Real Theme of Watteau’s Embarkation for Cytherea,” Burlington Magazine, 103:180–185 (1961); Giovanni Macchia and E.C. Montagni, L’opera completa di Watteau (1968); and Federico Zeri, Watteau: The Embarkment for Cythera (2000).

Other important monographs include Anita Brookner, Watteau (1967, reissued 1985); Marianne Roland Michel, Watteau et sa génération (1968), and Watteau, an Artist of the Eighteenth Century (1984; originally published in French, 1984); and Margaret Morgan Grasselli, Pierre Rosenberg, and Nicole Parmantier, Watteau, 1684–1721 (1984). Works that examine Watteau’s drawings are K.T. Parker, The Drawings of Antoine Watteau (1931, reprinted 1970); Jacques Bouchot-Sauphique, Les Dessins de Watteau (1953); K.T. Parker and J. Mathey, Antoine Watteau: catalogue complet de son oeuvre dessiné, 2 vol. (1957–58); Pierre Schneider, The World of Watteau, 1684–1721, rev. ed. (1977, reissued 1981); Malcolm Cormack, The Drawings of Watteau (1970); Martin P. Eidelberg, Watteau’s Drawings: Their Use and Significance (1977); Pierre Rosenberg and Louis-Antoine Prat, Antoine Watteau, 1684–1721: catalogue raisonné des dessins, 3 vol. (1996); and Alan Wintermute, Watteau and His World: French Drawing from 1700 to 1750 (1999), an exhibition catalogue.

Other late 20th and early 21st century considerations of Watteau include Humphrey Wine, Watteau (1992), a biography; Mary Vidal, Watteau’s Painted Conversations: Art, Literature, and Talk in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century France (1992); Julie Anne Plax, Watteau and the Cultural Politics of Eighteenth-Century France (2000); Helmut Börsch-Supan, Antoine Watteau, 1684–1721 (2000; originally published in German, 2000); and Mary D. Sheriff (ed.), Antoine Watteau: Perspectives on the Artist and the Culture of His Time (2006).