From Library Journal
This volume accompanies a lovely exhibition of French drawings traveling from the Frick Collection in New York to the National Gallery of Ontario, Ottowa. Organized by Sotheby's Wintermute with essays by Margaret Morgan Grasselli, Pierre Rosenberg, and Colin B. Bailey, the catalog examines the drawings of Watteau and followers such as Pater, Lancret, Boucher, and Portail. The texts cover issues such as problems of connoisseurship like stylistic attribution, the dissemination of the visual imagery of Watteau's drawings by the publication of a volume of engravings after his works, and the context of collecting drawings in 18th-century France. Beautiful color reproductions accompany the catalog of exhibited works, which also includes complete provenance and exhibition history and a bibliography for each drawing. Recommended for art libraries and academic libraries supporting strong art history programs.-Sandra Rothenberg, Framingham State Coll. Lib., MA Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Card catalog description
"The drawings of Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) have been admired and collected with a degree of enthusiasm accorded to no other artist of the French school. Watteau drew relentlessly, and the hundreds of his drawings known today demonstrate the full range of his genius, encompassing arabesques and decorative designs; landscapes; copies after the old masters; sketches of actors, clowns, singers, musicians, soldiers, and animals; multifigure preparatory drawings for theater designs and fetes galantes; and his celebrated studies of lovers in fancy dress, executed in red, black, and white chalks."--BOOK JACKET. "While focusing primarily on the extraordinary achievements of Watteau himself, in all their variety and vivacity, this book also explores the work of Watteau's mentors Claude Gillot and Charles de La Fosse, of Jean-Baptiste Pater (his only real pupil), and of his followers and imitators Nicolas Lancret, Pierre-Antoine Quillard, Jacques-Andre Portail, Francois Lemoyne. Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Charles Natoire, and Francois Boucher."--BOOK JACKET.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The drawings of Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) have been admired and collected with a degree of enthusiasm accorded to no other artist of the French school. Watteau drew relentlessly, and the hundreds of his drawings known today demonstrate the full range of his genius, encompassing arabesques and decorative designs; landscapes; copies after the old masters; sketches of actors, clowns, singers, musicians, soldiers, and animals; multifigure preparatory drawings for theater designs and fetes galantes; and his celebrated studies of lovers in fancy dress, executed in red, black, and white chalks.. "While focusing primarily on the extraordinary achievements of Watteau himself, in all their variety and vivacity, this book also explores the work of Watteau's mentors Claude Gillot and Charles de La Fosse, of Jean-Baptiste Pater (his only real pupil), and of his followers and imitators Nicolas Lancret, Pierre-Antoine Quillard, Jacques-Andre Portail, Francois Lemoyne. Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Charles Natoire, and Francois Boucher.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal