October 10, 1684, supposed day of Watteau’s birth, is actually the date he was baptized at the church of St. Jacques in Valenciennes. He was the son of Jean-Philippe Watteau, master roofer and carpenter, who knew how to read and write, and was officially registered as a bourgeois. All we know about Watteau’s mother is the name: Michele, née Lordenois; of Watteau’s three brothers that they continued his father’s enterprise. It is unknown whether his parents encouraged his artistic vocation. None the less they allowed the boy, on turning fifteen, to get some instruction from Jacques-Albert Gérin, the correct, mediocre official painter of Valenciennes.
1708. Oil on canvas. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes, France. (Apparently done from a drawing by Claude Gillot). Read Note.
1708-1709. Oil on wood. The Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, Russia.
1710-16. Oil on canvas. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.
c.1710. Oil on canvas. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Orléans, France.
1710. Oil on paper glued to canvas and mounted on panel. National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK.
c.1712. Oil on metal. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Troyes, France.
c.1712. Oil on canvas. National Gallery, London, UK.
c.1712. Oil on canvas. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia.
1712. Oil on canvas. The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA.
c.1715. Oil on panel. Musée Condé, Chantilly, France.
c.1715. Oil on canvas. Staatliche Museen, Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany.
c.1715. Oil on canvas. Staatliche Museen, Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany.
c.1715. Oil on canvas. Louvre, Paris, France. Read Note.
c.1715. Oil on canvas. Louvre, Paris, France.
c.1716. Oil on canvas. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Valenciennes, France.
c.1716. Oil on canvas. Wallace Collection, London, UK.
1716. Oil on canvas. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia.
1716. Oil on canvas. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Germany.
1716. Oil on canvas. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Germany.
1716. Oil on canvas. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Germany.
Watteau by Modest Marariu. Editions Meridiane. Bucharest. 1985.
Painting of Europe. XIII-XX centuries. Encyclopedic Dictionary. Moscow. Iskusstvo. 1999.
Antoine Watteau. Leningrad. 1973.
Watteau by M. German. Moscow. 1980.
Antoine Watteau 1684-1721 (Masters of French Art) by Helmut Borsch-Supan. Konemann, 2001.
Watteau and His World: French Drawing from 1700 to 1750 by Alan Wintermute, Colin B. Bailey, American Federation of Arts. Merrell Publishers, 1999.
Watteau's Painted Conversations: Art, Literature, and Talk in Seventeenth- And Eighteenth-Century France by Mary Vidal. Yale Univ Pr, 1992.
The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting by Colin B. Bailey, Philip Conisbee, Thomas W. Gaehtgens. Yale University Press, 2003.
Antoine Watteau 1684-1721 (Masters of French Art) by Helmut Borsch-Supan. Konemann, 2001.
Watteau and the Cultural Politics of Eighteenth-Century France by Julie Anne Plax. Cambridge University Press, 2000.