Two Seated Women

Artist Jean Antoine Watteau (French, 1684 - 1721)

Dateca. 1712

MediumRed chalk on paper

DimensionsUnframed: 7 x 7 5/8 inches (17.78 x 19.38 cm)
Framed: 16 3/4 x 19 3/4 x 1 3/4 inches (42.55 x 50.17 x 4.45 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number34-145

On View

Not on view

Collections

European Art

Terms

Exhibition History

Loan Exhibition of Old Master Drawings from Midwestern Museums, Detroit Institute of Arts, June 1-September 15, 1950, no. 58, as Two Studies for “Le Repas Champêtre.”

French Masters: Rococo to Romanticism, UCLA Art Galleries, Los Angeles, March 5-April 18, 1961, no. 13, as Feuille d’Etude [sic].

Eighteenth-Century European Drawings: From the Collections of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City and the Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri-Columbia, University of Missouri Museum of Art and Archaeology, Columbia, MO, October 18-November 18, 1979, unnumbered, as A Sheet of Studies.

Watteau 1684-1721, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., June 17-September 23, 1984; Grand Palais, Paris, October 23, 1984-January 28, 1985; Schloss Charlottenberg, Berlin, February 22-May 26, 1985, no. 17, as Two Women Seated.

Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Washington University Gallery of Art, Saint Louis, MO, September 22-December 3, 1989, unnumbered, as Two Seated Women.

Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, The Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK, June 23-August 18, 1996; The Cummer Museum and Gardens, Jacksonville, FL, September 20-November 29, 1996; The Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, December 21, 1996-March 2, 1997, no. 40, as Two Seated Women.

Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Permanent Collection, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, July 12-September 6, 1998, no cat., as Two Seated Women.

Dürer to Tiepolo: Works on Paper, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, December 12, 2012-June 9, 2013, no cat., as Two Seated Women.

Gallery Label

Watteau was the most emotionally profound of the French artists of the 18th century. He was famous for his paintings of courtly pleasures with elegant figures relaxing and enjoying themselves in idyllic park-like scenery. In this drawing of two fashionable ladies, one holding a fan, the other a muff, the artist appears to be experimenting with different poses, perhaps in preparation for a painting. Their pensive expressions are typical of the vein of melancholy in his work, reminding us that all pleasures are transitory.

Provenance

Marquis Charles-Ferdinand-Louis Valori d'Estilly Rustichelli (1820-1883), Paris, by 1883 [1];

Purchased at his sale, Dessins anciens de toutes les écoles du XVe au XVIIIe siècle, aquarelles et gouaches principalement de l'école française du XVIIIe siècle par ou attribué à Aldegrever, Aubert, Beham, Bouchardin, Boucher, Caresme, Chardin, Cochin, Coypel, Cranach, Drouais, Dumonsieur, Dürer, Dusart, Van Dyck, Eeckholt, Fragonard, Freudenberg…[etc.], Hôtel des Commissaires-Priseurs, Paris, November 25-26, 1907, lot 246, as Feuille d’étude: Deux femmes assises, don’t une tient un éventail; Études pour le repas champêtre, by Paul Roblin, Paris, 1907;

Purchased from Paul Roblin by “a Paris dealer” [2];

With Richard Owen, Paris, by 1934;

Purchased from Richard Owen by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1934.

NOTES:

[1] Lugt 2500

[2] See note from Valerie Zell in NAMA Curatorial File.

Published References

Catalogue des dessins anciens de toutes les écoles du XVe au XVIIIe siècle, aquarelles et gouaches principalement de l'école française du XVIIIe siècle par ou attribué à Aldegrever, Aubert, Beham, Bouchardin, Boucher, Caresme, Chardin, Cochin, Coypel, Cranach, Drouais, Dumonsieur, Dürer, Dusart, Van Dyck, Eeckholt, Fragonard, Freudenberg…[etc.] (Paris: Hôtel des commissaires-priseurs, November 25-26, 1907), 58, (repro.), as Feuille d’étude: Deux femmes assises, don’t une tient un éventail; Études pour le repas champêtre.

“Studies by Watteau Recently Purchased by Nelson Gallery,” Art News 33, no. 1 (October 13, 1934): 3.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2^nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 99, (repro.), as Sheet of Studies.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 3^rd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1949), 124, (repro.), as Sheet of Studies.

John S. Newberry, Loan Exhibition of Old Master Drawings from Midwestern Museums, exh. cat. (Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1950), unpaginated, (repro.), as Two Studies for “Le Repas Champêtre.”

Karl Theodore Parker and Jacques Mathey, Antoine Watteau: Catalogue complet de son œuvre dessiné, vol. 1 (Paris: F. De Nobele, 1957), 8, 31, (repro.), as Deux études d’une femme assise; l’une porte un manchon, l’autre un éventail.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 107, (repro.), as Two Seated Ladies.

French Masters: Rococo to Romanticism, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: UCLA Art Galleries, 1961), 50, as Feuille d’Etude [sic].

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 176, 185, (repro.), as Two Seated Ladies.

Eighteenth-Century European Drawings: From the Collections of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City and the Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri-Columbia, exh. cat. (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Museum of Art and Archaeology, 1979), unpaginated, as A Sheet of Studies.

Margaret Morgan Grasselli and Pierre Rosenberg, Watteau 1684-1721, exh. cat. (Washington, D.C.: The National Gallery of Art, 1984), 77-78, (repro.), as Two Women Seated.

Roger Ward and Mark S. Weil, Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, exh. cat. (St. Louis, MO: Washington University Gallery of Art, 1989), 7, 11, 42, (repro.), as Two Seated Women.

Le rouge et le noir: Cent dessins français de 1700 à 1850, exh. cat. (Paris: Galerie Cailleux, 1991), unpaginated.

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 179, (repro.), as Two Women.

Roger Ward, Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 11, 113, 135-37, (repro.), as Two Seated Women.

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 87, (repro.), as Two Seated Women.

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.