Getty Museum
Two Studies of a Flutist and a Study of the Head of a Boy
Creator
Jean-Antoine WatteauFrench Artist · 1684–1721
All works by this person →The son of a roof tiler, Jean-Antoine Watteau showed a penchant for drawing and painting early in life. At eighteen he was apprenticed to a painter in his native town of Valenciennes. Soon after, with little money and few possessions, he made his way to Paris, where he made a living by copying the works of Titian and Paolo Veronese. There he entered the studio of Claude Audran III, the most renown
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- 1718
- Medium
- Red, black, and white chalk, on buff-colored paper
- Culture
- French
- Department
- Drawings
- Institution
- Getty Museum
- Object ID
- d8f3dce1-732c-41e6-8de6-71c406472454
This sheet of three studies shows two views of a man playing a flute next to the head of a boy looking on. Jean-Antoine Watteau observed the flutist from life and captured his expression of keen concentration as he blows his breath through pursed lips and the elegant movement of his fingers on the keys of the instrument. Watteau was a master of the technique known in French as *trois crayons*, a combination of red, black, and white chalks, usually on tinted paper. Here he suggested texture by the play of light on drapery and other details such as the shape of the musician's long, tapered fingers, the sweep of his wavy hair, and the softness of the white lace around his wrists.
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