Explore the Provenance and dating of this artwork.
In the 18th century, the sheet belonged to Watteau's friend and patron, the manufacturer and publisher Jean de Jullienne; it was said by Edmond de Goncourt that the sheet was lot 787, sold for 82 livres at the sale held after Jullienne's death in Spring 1767, described as "Deux hommes en habit de paysan; ils sont assis, la main gauche de chacun est posée sur une canne en béquille."After remaining obscure for a century, the sheet resurfaced in the 1870s, passing through numerous private collectors known only by name. By 1871, it was in possession of a certain De Vos; then it passed to another owner, a Rotterdam-based collector D. Vis Blokhuyzen. After Blokhuyzen's death, the sheet was sold as lot 664 at auction on October 23, 1871 to the German entrepreneur Barthold Suermondt (1818–1887); as part of Suermondt's collection, the sheet has been acquired for the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, in 1874.In a 1984 monograph on Watteau, Marianne Roland Michel dates the sheet as earlier as c. 1716–1717, relying on the drawing style. in the 1984–1985 exhibition catalogue, the National Gallery of Art curator Margaret Morgan Grasselli dated the drawings c. 1716; in a later 1987 dissertation on Watteau's drawings, she re-attributed the sheet to final months of Watteau's life, c. 1721. In the 1996 catalogue raisonné, Pierre Rosenberg and Louis-Antoine Prat give the sheet an earlier dating of c. 1720.
National Gallery of Art Berlin Jean de Jullienne Kupferstichkabinett Edmond de Goncourt Pierre Rosenberg Barthold Suermondt