Antoine Watteau (1684–1721)
Trois Crayons Magazine, May 2026
One of these artists was an early pioneer of the drawn landscape, and among the first artists to produce drawings for the market, while the other is credited with the invention of the fête galante, a form of painting which depicted amorous figures in ball dress or masquerade costumes in parkland settings. The drawing is not a fake intended to deceive but an intentional copy, produced in admiration nearly 200 years later. Which is which, and can you name the two artists?
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The original is the left (upper) image.
Left (upper) Image: Antoine Watteau (1684–1721) after Domenico Campagnola, Landscape with an Old Woman Holding a Spindle, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no.: 1972.118.237
Right (lower) Image: Domenico Campagnola (1500–1564), Landscape with an Old Woman Holding a Spindle, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no.: 1972.118.243Pierre Crozat (1661–1740), a wealthy Parisian banker, was one of the foremost collectors of drawings in the eighteenth century. He befriended the artist Antoine Watteau and offered him commissions, housing, and access to his collection of drawings. Watteau was entranced with the sixteenth-century Venetian landscape drawings in Crozat’s collection and copied many of them. In this case, the original drawing by Domenico Campagnola and Watteau’s copy have both ended up in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum. Although Watteau has remained faithful to Campagnola's composition, he has substituted for the Venetian artist's pen and brown ink his own preferred medium of red chalk.
