"Watteau" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nose that we have no epithet in English to describe, but which charmed in Roxalana. Her brown hair fell over her white and well turned shoulders in long and luxuriant tresses. One has met something as brilliant and dainty in a medallion of old Sevres, or amid the terraces and gardens of Watteau. ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... wondering if she should meet him in the gallery, and what he would think of the Greuse. He wouldn't care much about it. He didn't care much about the French eighteenth century, of course he admired Watteau, but it was an impersonal admiration, there was nothing of the Watteau, Greuse, Pater, or Lancret in him. He was purely English. He took no interest in the unreal charm that that head expressed. Of course, no such girl had ever existed or could ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... seventeenth-century art. Chief among the painters who interpreted the refined sensuality and more pleasant vices of the age, yet not of them, was Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), the melancholy youth from French Flanders, who began by painting St. Nicholases at three francs a week and his board, but who soon invented a new manner and became famous as the Peintre des Scenes Galantes. These scenes of coquetry, frivolity and amorous dalliance, ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... despised; every thing which could add brilliancy and dignity to the toilet was banished, the greatest simplicity and nonchalance were now the fashion; every lady strove, if possible, to resemble a shepherdess of Watteau, and it was soon impossible to distinguish a duchess from ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... which await it, once it frees itself from the tyranny of those labour-saving contrivances with which it usually works. Leaving on one side the more subtle apprehensions which we call "spiritual," even the pictures of the old Chinese draughtsmen and the modern impressionists, of Watteau and of Turner, of Manet, Degas, and Cezanne; the poems of Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley, Whitman—these, and countless others, assure you that their creators have enjoyed direct communion, not with some vague ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... old," he said joyfully. "He'll give me eight hundred for it, and it's not worth a pipe of tobacco. And eight hundred pounds is just the price of a little Watteau I've had my eye on ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... and joy Balzac felt in showing them all his treasures—the bust by David D'Angers, the precious Medici furniture of ebony encrusted with mother-of-pearl, the Cellini statuettes, and the pictures by Giorgione, Palma, Watteau, and Greuze. ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... me. There were fine gentlemen with swords and silk waistcoats and silver shoe-buckles, and ladies in filmy summer gowns. Greuze ruled the mode in France then, but New Orleans had not got beyond Watteau. As for Nick and me, we knew nothing of Greuze and Watteau then, and we could only stare in astonishment. And for once we saw an officer of the Louisiana Regiment resplendent in a uniform that might ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... does not seem prepared to accept work in quite another style. But there is no more chance of there ever being another Keene than of there being another Rembrandt, or of there ever being another du Maurier than another Watteau. The next genius to whom it is given to illuminate the pages of the classic journal in a style that will rival the past is not likely to arise from among those who think that there is no other view of life than that which was discovered by their ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... and gauntlets, his wooden carvings, his black-letter distich; and, although she was not overflowing in her praises, she had seen other family pictures by Greuze, and she herself possessed a fan painted by Watteau, to which he was vastly welcome if he cared for such ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... XVI. by the States of Burgundy, and portraits of the King and Marie Antoinette. The Cabinet de Travail of the queen was a cabinet given to her on her marriage by the town of Paris; in the Salle de Rception are four pictures by Watteau; the Boudoir has a Svres bust of the queen; in the Chambre—coucher is the queen's bed, and a portrait of the Dauphin by Lebrun. These simple rooms are a standing defense of the queen from the false accusations brought against her at the Revolution as to her ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... low, and the long shadows of the trees were black on the dim lawn. People were assembling for supper, and passing to and fro under low-hanging branches; and the gaily-colored gowns of the women glimmered through a faint blue haze like that with which Boucher and Watteau and Fragonard loved to veil, and thereby to make wistful, somehow, the antics of those fine parroquet-like manikins who figure ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... creators. It is not always possible to trace the personal feelings and motives lying behind the artist's fictions; for the suffering soul covers its pains with subtle disguises; yet even when we do not know them, we can divine them. We are certain, for example, that Watteau's gay pictured visions were the projection—and confession—of his own disappointed dreams. The great advantage of art over ordinary expression, in this respect, is its universality. Art is the confessional ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... Boucher we have here, nor Watteau: cosmetics and rosettes are far away; tunics are short, and cheeks are nut-brown. It is Teniers, rather:—boors, indeed; but they are live boors, and not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... more or less of the expression of those passions, as they appear in general and more enlarged nature. This principle may be applied to the battle pieces of Bourgognone, the French gallantries of Watteau, and even beyond the exhibition of animal life, to the landscapes of Claude Lorraine, and the sea-views of Vandervelde. All these painters have, in general, the same right, in different degrees, to the name of a painter, which a satirist, an epigrammatist, a sonnetteer, a writer of pastorals, or ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... Mrs. Ogilvie, "you do look nice in that dress, it fits you very well. Turn round, and let me see how it is made at the back. Ah! I told Mademoiselle Leroe to make it in that style; that little watteau back is so very becoming to small girls. Turn round now slowly, and let me get the side view. Yes, it is a pretty dress; be sure you don't mess it. You are to come down with the other children to dessert. You had better go now, I ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... charm of tone and the minute fidelity to nature which were the praise of the Dutch school of painters, but with a higher sentiment, a more refined humor, and an airy elegance that recalls the better moods of Watteau. We do not remember any Italian studies so faithful or the result of such continuous opportunity, unless it be the "Roba di Roma" of Mr. Story, and what may be found scattered in the works of Henri ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... shepherdess, They dwelt in Arcadee, And they were dressed in Watteau dress, Most ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... dining-room, others elegant knick-knacks for the boudoir; many are kept constantly busy delineating for the respect of future generations his lordship, or her ladyship's family. The painting of the eighteenth century is brilliant illustration still touched with art. For instance, in Watteau, Canaletto, Crome, Cotman, and Guardi there is some art, some brilliance, and a great deal of charming illustration. In Tiepolo there is hardly anything but brilliance; only when one sees his work ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... philosophy and science of their time, than to bid for a cane-bottomed chair that either of these two ladies had adorned. The same thing might be said, in a different sense, of Voltaire; while, as every one knows, the money-value of any hand-stroke of Watteau or Hogarth, Nattier or Sir Joshua, is out of all proportion to the importance of the men. Society seemed to delight in talking with solemn conviction about serious values, and in paying fantastic prices for nothing but the most futile. The drama acted at Peking, in the ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... may have been seen by many readers in the famous old Philipse house,—Washington's head-quarters,—in the town of Yorkers. The fire-places, worthy of the wide-throated central chimney, were bordered by pictured tiles, some of them with Scripture stories, some with Watteau-like figures,—tall damsels in slim waists and with spread enough of skirt for a modern ballroom, with bowing, reclining, or musical swains of what everybody calls the "conventional" sort,—that is, the swain adapted to genteel society rather than to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... was destined to succeed superbly in the war of life. Mrs. Parflete—whose courage, determination, and powers of endurance were concealed by a face which might have been made of lovely gauze—seemed less a being than a poetical creation: a portrait by Watteau or Fragonard stepped from its frame, animated by pure fancy, and moving, without sorrow and without ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... southwest angle of the central hall, is devoted to painters who either have influenced American art or represent its earlier stages. Room 91, on the east side of the block, contains old Dutch, Flemish, French, and Italian pictures, none very interesting, though Teniers, Watteau and Tintoretto are represented. Rooms 92, 62, and 61, constituting the tier next to the Italian section, show chiefly examples of the French painters, including those of the Barbizon school, who have influenced later American painting. Along with other names less known, Room 92 displays ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... casting about for new amusements for his favourites, rescued the bagpipe, or, as the French called it, the 'cornemeuse,' from its low surroundings, and introduced it into his Arcadian festivities. We may picture a dignified Marquis and Marquise, as Watteau has painted them, in the fantastic garb of shepherds and shepherdesses, frolicking to the music of the bagpipes, in the forest glades ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... and nymphs, and on the wall-hangings more fairies and nymphs, and all the charming figures of the pastoral mythology—the Corydons, the Phylises, the Rosalinds—animated with their sylvan loves one of those sunny Cytherean landscapes originated by the fanciful imagination of Antoine Watteau. ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... and white and silver. The carpet is pink, and feels like moss, as you step. The wall is covered with pink and silver brocade, except where there are panels with Watteau-like pictures. The curtains are foamy lace, with the pink and silver brocade falling over them. The furniture looks as if it were made of ivory; there's a mirror in three parts, reaching from the ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... snug town with a little park like a clean handkerchief, streets with coloured shops, neat and fresh-painted like toys from a toy-shop, little blue trains, statues of bewigged eighteenth-century kings and dukes, and a restaurant, painted Watteau-fashion with bright green groves, ladies in hoops and powder, and long-legged sheep. Here we wandered, five of us. Nikitin told us that he would meet us at the station that evening. He had his own business in the place. The little town was delivered over to the Russian army but seemed happy ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... the Christmas Card Basket, and produces RAPHAEL TUCK AND SONS,—"Tuck," a schoolword dear to "our boys,"—who lead off the Christmas dance. Daintily and picturesquely got up, their Cards are quite full. Their Watteau Screens will serve as small ornaments afterwards. These "Correct Cards," with few exceptions, are not particularly for Christmas, but for all time. Here's Luck To ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... were sounding when they rang, and Mrs. Wilmington rose from the instrument to meet them. A young man who had been standing beside her turned away. Mrs. Wilmington was dressed in a light morning dress with a Watteau fall, whose delicate russets and faded reds and yellows heightened the richness of her complexion ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... herself by selecting the costumes that she wishes a few particular friends to don, sufficient in number to form one or more quadrilles to open the ball. Each set must be carefully arranged as for instance, a court party, costumed after the time of Louis XIV. A group of Watteau Shepherds and shepherdesses, or a hunting party garbed after ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... designs, elegant scrolls, delicate tracery of blue, red, green, &c. These colours strongly opposed as in the remains of paintings at Pompeii. Here are some other precious little pictures, a small Gerard Dow, a Watteau, a Moucheron, and a Polemberg. He merely noticed them, and then led us into ...
— Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown
... half hidden from the precincts of the chateau, are the Chaumiere and the Ermitage and they recall the background of a Fragonard or a Watteau. It is all very "stagy"—but, since it exists, can hardly be ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... great sacrifice. It contained an admirable collection of furniture, pictures, wood carvings, and faience. The Baron lived there alone, attended by three old servants. No one ever enters the place. No one had ever beheld the three Rubens that he possessed, his two Watteau, his Jean Goujon pulpit, and the many other treasures that he had acquired by a vast expenditure of money at ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... and settees in the French mode—this was all she would allow; and while Lady Tranmore's room was always crowded, Kitty's, which was much smaller, had always an air of space. French books were scattered here and there; and only one picture was admitted. That was a Watteau sketch of a group from "L'Embarquement pour Cythere." Kitty adored it; Lady Tranmore thought ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... materialize. Here the little steno in the green tarn is Lais of Corinth, the dowager alighting from the electric is Zenobia. Illusions dress the entire procession. Semiramis, Leda, and tailored nymphs; dryad eyes gleam from powder-white masks. Or, if the classics bore you, Watteau and the rococo pertness of the Grand Monarch. And there are Gothic noses, Moorish eyebrows, Byzantine slippers. Take your pick, walk up and down ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... chest in the garret, the dowager Marquise of the proverb just played. And a little further, in the shadow of the doorway, stood Angelot in powdered wig, silk coat, and sword, looking like a handsome courtier from a group by Watteau, and his eyes showed plainly enough what woman, if not what cause, attracted him at the moment. As to causes, Monsieur Joseph and the Vicomte des Barres were deep in talk close by; two Chouans consulting in the very ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... movements are picturesque!" "You could not sell them," replied his friend. "Well, then, what do you say to fauns and dryads?" "Who in Paris cares for fauns and dryads?" "What shall I do, then?" said Millet in despair. "What does the public like?" "It likes Boucher's Cupids, Watteau's Pastorals, nudities, anecdotes, and copies of the past." It was hard for Millet, but hunger drove him. He would not appeal to his family, life was as difficult for them as for him. But before yielding he would make one more trial, painting something from his own fancy. He ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... pris cette condition que pour vivre plus doucement et sans contrainte.' No wonder that to Fontenelle Theocritus' shepherds 'sentent trop la campagne[4].' But the hour of pastoralism had come, and while the ladies and gallants of the court were playing the parts of Watteau swains and shepherdesses amid the trim hedges and smooth lawns of Versailles, the gates were already bursting before the flood, which was to sweep in devastation over the land, and to purge the old order of ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... died in 1721, not in 1722," she replied. "The only date I can never remember is William the Conqueror. But of course you couldn't remember about Watteau. It's distance makes memory. You're ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... Watteau must have mapped out this Donko-Tchaya, for it has rather an affected air of rurality, though very pretty. Well shaded, under a thick vault of large trees densely foliaged, a miniature lake hard by, the chosen residence of a few toads, has given it its attractive denomination. ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... by many men of a very real poetical genius. It was the method of the old pastoral poets like Theocritus. It was in another way that adopted by the elegance and piety of Spenser. It was certainly expressed in the pictures of Watteau; and it had a very sympathetic and even manly expression in modern England in the decorative poetry of William Morris. These men of genius, from Theocritus to Morris, occupied themselves in endeavouring to describe happiness as ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... his mother and sister. That fellow, who is now as arrogant a stickler for the dignity of art as you or my Lord Chancellor may be for that of the bar, stooped then to deal clandestinely with fancy shops, and imitate Watteau on fans. I have two hand-screens that he painted for a shop in Rathbone Place. I suppose he may have got ten shillings for them, and now any admirer of Frank's would give ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... fisherwomen, while half a dozen of the others are engaged in fanning him and "Shoo-ing" the flies away from his expressive nose. The picture is a very pretty one, recalling to mind some brilliant pastoral by WATTEAU. There are numerous accessories arranged in the foreground, such as hampers of cold chicken pie, hams of the richest pink and yellow hues, and baskets of champagne, and it would be interesting to know who pays for all. "Spinning a minnow," as the anglers term it, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... lukewarm shade, the shops of the dealers in old books, engravings, and antiquated furniture drew my eyes and appealed to my fancy. Rummaging and idling among these, I hastily enjoyed some verses spiritedly thrown off by a poet of the Pleiad. I examined an elegant Masquerade by Watteau. I felt, with my eye, the weight of a two-handed sword, a steel gorgerin, a morion. What a thick helmet! What a ponderous breastplate— Seigneur! A giant's garb? No—the carapace of an insect. The men of those days were cuirassed like beetles; their weakness was within them. To-day, on the contrary, ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... entertainment at Gaunt House? There was to be a very pretty breakfast ball at Viscount Marrowfat's, at Fulham. Everybody was to be there (including august personages of the highest rank), and there was to be a Watteau quadrille, in which Miss Amory would surely look charming. To these and other amusements the obsequious old gentleman kindly offered to conduct Lady Clavering, and was also ready to make himself useful to the Baronet in any ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... foundation of truth? Apocryphal is, no doubt, that which has evolved itself from the internal evidence supplied by the Baptism of Christ of Verrocchio and Leonardo da Vinci; but a stronger substructure of fact supports the unpleasing anecdotes as to Titian and Tintoretto, as to Watteau and Pater, as to our own Hudson and Reynolds, and, alas! as to very many others. How touching, on the other hand, is that simple entry in Francesco Francia's day-book, made when his chief journeyman, Timoteo Viti, leaves him: "1495 a di 4 aprile e partito il mio caro Timoteo; chi ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... the forehead alone contains the existence of a man, that man is enlightened only from above his head; then his jealous shadow, prostrate under him, draws him by the feet, that it may drag him down into the invisible." Like Watteau, Laforgue was "condemned" from the beginning to "a green thought in a green shade." The spirit in him, the "shadow," devoured his soul, pulverised his will, made of him a Hamlet without a propelling cause, a doubter in a world of cheap certitudes and insolent fatuities, but barred him proffering ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... illustrated with big florid engravings in sham antique style. The years between 1730 and 1820, saw the French "little masters" in their perfection. The dress of the middle of the eighteenth century, of the age of Watteau, was precisely suited to the gay and graceful pencils of Gravelot, Moreau, Eisen, Boucher, Cochin, Marillier, and Choffard. To understand their merits, and the limits of their art, it is enough to glance through ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... artists succeeded in carrying the elegance of the 18th century through the storm into the period beyond, notably Prud'hon, who has been called the Watteau of the Revolution. His portraits of the women of the Bonaparte family, Josephine, Hortense, Pauline, have all the grace and fascination of the earlier age, merge with it the abandon of the Directoire period, and touch the whole with the romanticism and individualism of the coming century. In terrible ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... renovating my father's large workroom. That delightful, tumble-down old place has lost its moss-grown tiles and the green weather-stains we have known all our lives on the high whitewashed wall, opposite which we sit, in the little sculptor's yard, for the coolness, in summertime. Among old Watteau's workpeople came his son, "the genius," my father's godson and namesake, a dark-haired youth, whose large, unquiet eyes seemed perpetually wandering to the various drawings which lie exposed here. My ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... he was a genius of the highest rank, although he had the distinction that great genius nearly always achieves, of creating a school that produced many imitators and established a place apart for itself in the world's estimation. In ballad writing he did for the United States what Watteau did for painting in France. As Watteau found a Flemish school in France and left a French school stamped forever, so Foster found the United States a home for imitations of English, Irish, German and Italian songs, and left a native ballad form and melodic strain forever impressed ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... palatial apartment furnished in white and gold—Louis Quinze, or something of the sort—with very new decorations after Watteau covering the walls. The process of disfiguration, however, had already begun. A roll desk of the least possible Louis Quinze order stood in one of the tall windows; the carpet was marked by muddy ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... we will not here argue. If you choose to place Murillo in the first class of painters, founding his claim upon these Virgin altar-pieces, I am your humble servant. Tom Moore painted altar-pieces as well as Milton, and warbled Sacred Songs and Loves of the Angels after his fashion. I wonder did Watteau ever try historical subjects? And as for Greuze, you know that his heads will fetch 1,000L., 1,500L., 2,000L.—as much as a Sevres "cabaret" of Rose du Barri. If cost price is to be your criterion of worth, what shall we say to that little ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... high blue-veined forehead and pale eyes and lashes, made a characteristic Vandyck, in black satin, against a curtained archway. Then there were Kauffmann nymphs garlanding the altar of Love; a Veronese supper, all sheeny textures, pearl-woven heads and marble architecture; and a Watteau group of lute-playing comedians, lounging by a ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... at her and realised once more the dainty Watteau—like grace of her oval face and slim, supple figure. He thought of the days when they had stolen out together on to the hillside, oftenest in the falling twilight, sometimes even in the grey dawn, and his heart beat regretfully. ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... it were, he almost blushes, as if he had been guilty of spying on Adam and Eve in their nuptial bower. Alas, if one could but muffle his speech with the unconscious lisp of infancy, or veil and tone his picture to correspond to the perspective of antiquity, he might feel at least that, like Watteau, he had dealt worthily, if not truly, with that ideal age which we ever think of as the world's ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... just as I was hand-frigging myself two delicious looking little girls stood before me, holding up their frocks, and showing me their rosebuds of hairless slits, as they also rubbed and frigged their little cunts, smiling and telling me they could. They were exquisitely dressed in the Watteau style, looking almost like Dresden figures, being so chic and delicate; then, seating themselves one on each side me on the grass, they proceeded to handle and play with my great big prick, allowing me at the same time to frig their two ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... by "sincerity and freshness, often by great beauty and stateliness;" or from the criticism of such artists as Jean Cousin, who painted windows which were "limpid with hues of amethyst, sapphire, and topaz, and fair as a May morning;" or again, of Watteau, of whom we are told that "in the vivacity and grace of his drawing, in the fascination of his harmonies, rich and suave at once, in the fidelity with which he reflected his times without hinting at their coarseness, this wizard ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... never altogether understand," she replied. "Nothing requires a little artificial aid so much as nature. It is the piquancy of the contrast, you see. That is why the decorations of Watteau are the most wonderful in the world. He knew how to combine the purely, exquisitely artificial with the entirely simple. Now to break ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had, for Milly, beyond terrace and garden, as the centre of an almost extravagantly grand Watteau-composition, a tone as of old gold kept "down" by the quality of the air, summer full-flushed, but attuned to the general perfect taste. Much, by her measure, for the previous hour, appeared, in connection ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... average intelligent reader joined with the average intelligent critic in concluding that such various accomplishment must needs be superficial. It was not credible that one and the same pair—par nobile fratrum—could be not only close observers of contemporary life, but also authorities on Watteau and Outamaro, on Marie Antoinette and Mlle. Clairon. To admit this would be to emphasize the limitations of all other men of letters. Again, the uncanny element of chance which enters into every enterprise was constantly hostile to the Goncourts. ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... the Museum Francais in 1792, consisting of the royal collections and art treasures of suppressed convents, was the beginning of a great movement in this direction. At Lille the municipal authorities first got together a few pictures in the convent of the Recollets, and Watteau the painter was deputed to draw up a catalogue. On the 12th May, 1795, the collection consisted of 583 pictures and 58 engravings. On the 1st September, 1801, the consuls decreed the formation of departmental museums and distribution of public art treasures. It was not, however, till ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... apartment. Facing it is a sideboard in sculptured ebony, enriched with bronze, by Gouthieres. There are only two pictures on the walls: "The Departure of the Newly Married Couple," exquisitely painted by Lancret; and "The Prediction," an adorable work by Watteau, bought at an incredible price at the Pourtales sale. Over the chimney-piece is a miniature by Pommayrac, representing Micheline as a little child—a treasure which Madame Desvarennes cannot behold without tears coming to her eyes. A door, hidden by curtains, ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... Gabriel Varden, locksmith. She was loved to distraction by Joe Willet, Hugh of the Maypole inn, and Simon Tappertit. Dolly dressed in the Watteau style, and was lively, pretty, and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... may take the evidence of Vandyck, Watteau, Francois Boucher, and Greuze, in whose pictures they are so frequently introduced, all the toy Spaniels of bygone days had much longer noses and smaller, flatter heads than those of the present time, and they had much longer ears, these in many ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... killed, and the Abbe Paris, having been buried in the cemetery attached in 1727, his tomb, it is pretended, had certain convulsions in 1730, and was the origin of the sect called convulsionists, and the scenes which occurred caused the cemetery to be closed in 1732. A picture of St. Genenieve, by Watteau, in the chapel of that saint, must be admired, having much merit. In the Rue de l'Oursine, No. 95, is an hospital which is a refuge for sinning and afflicted females (something in the nature of the Magdalen, in London), containing 300 ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... business, and that quickly, but doing so with a stately elegance worthy of the great Mrs. Barry; the suitor bowing low, with his white hand pressed against that "odious proud heart" which is gently breaking at the thought of departing. What a nice painting it would make for a Watteau fan. ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... exclaimed, "paint in the foreground a few peacocks languidly dragging their gorgeous tails, and you have a Watteau or a Fragonard—no, a Monticelli! Only, Monticelli would have made the peacocks the central motive with the women and trees as ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... room, that his spirit treasured such delicate, nymph-like, pastoral memories as now shone clear to Rodriguez. No words the blunt man had ever been able to utter had ever hinted that he sometimes thought like a dream of pictures by Watteau. And now in that awful space before the power of the terrible Sun, spirit communed with spirit, and Rodriguez saw the beauty of that far day, framed all about the beauty of one young girl, just as it had been for years in Morano's memory. How ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... most characteristic of certain recurrent moods. That one on Denys L'Auxerrois, where the sweet, perilous legend of the exiled god—has he really been ever far from us, that treacherous Son of scorched white Flesh?—leads us so far, so strangely far. That one on Watteau, the Prince of Court Painters, where his passion for things faded and withdrawn reaches its climax. For Pater, like Antoine, is one of those always ready to turn a little wearily from the pressure of their own too vivid days, and seek a wistful escape in some fantastic valley of dreams. Watteau's ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... of people—people whom I have known all my life— and they make a great deal of me. I have to tell them about Italy, and they ask me absurd questions about Michael Angelo or Titian, Leonardo or Watteau.... The house party is a large one, and we have people to dinner every day; and in the evening the drawing-room, with its grim oak and escutcheons and rich modern furniture, is a pretty sight indeed. There is a lady here whom I knew in London, Lady Seveley; and I have had suspicions that ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... magnificent brocades, all of which any enriched tradesman could have procured for money; but he also noted such treasures as only princes can select and find, can pay for and give away; two pictures by Greuze, two by Watteau, two heads by Vandyck, two landscapes by Ruysdael, and two by le Guaspre, a Rembrandt, a Holbein, a Murillo, and a Titian, two paintings, by Teniers, and a pair by Metzu, a Van Huysum, and an Abraham Mignon—in short, two hundred thousand ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... four being representative, opened the eyes of critics and public alike. It was realised that Monticelli had not received his proper ranking in the nineteenth-century theatre of painting; that while he owed much to Watteau, to Turner, to Rousseau, he was a master who could stand or fall on his own merits. Since then the Monticelli pictures have been steadily ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... are counterbalanced by a return to the French ideal, to the realistic and characteristic tradition which commences with Jean Foucquet and Clouet, and is continued by Chardin, Claude Lorrain, Poussin, Watteau, La Tour, Fragonard, and the admirable engravers of the eighteenth century down to the final triumph of the allegorical taste of the Roman revolution. Here can be found a whole chain of truly national artists who have either been misjudged, ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... Boucher's etching after a drawing by Watteau (plate 216 in Jean de Julienne's compilation of Watteau's work, Figures de differents ...
— John Baptist Jackson - 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut • Jacob Kainen
... search of penance. In the centre of the room lay in hopeless confusion a pile of all sorts and varieties of garments, many of them of most antiquated description. Plumed hats and velvet knee-breeches of the cavalier period, Jersey jackets and tea-gowns, with Watteau plaits, such as were in fashion when Victoria was queen, were mingled with articles of a more recent date. On the top lay an open volume, the pages of which were brown with dust. Maggie picked ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... a greater sense of personal and individual creation. One can never quite think of anyone in connection with her pictures other than the happy reminiscence of Watteau. With her work comes charm in the highest, finest sense; there is nothing trivial about her pictures, yet they abound in all the graces of the 18th Century. Her drawings and paintings with spread fans and now and then a greyhound or a gazelle opposed against them in design, hold grace ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... another design, printed in imitation of the half-light (abat-jour); this is used principally for a ground, covering the whole surface of the glass, within which (the necessary spaces having been previously cut out before it is stuck on the glass) are placed medallion centres of Watteau figures, perfectly transparent, which derive increased brilliancy from the semi-transparency of the surrounding ground. This is by far the cheapest method, though involving extra trouble, as the ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... give any idea of the opera itself?—If the reader would revive for himself this vanished world let him seek for it in those works that have preserved its externals or its accent, and first in the pictures and engravings of Watteau, Fragonard and the Saint-Aubins, and then in the novels and dramas of Voltaire and Marivaux, and even in Colle and Crebillon fils;[2252] then do we see the breathing figures and hear their voices, What bright, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... months from that eventful date the gas-light of the Canadian Senate Chamber was falling upon my white brocaded Watteau train, as I advanced towards the throne where our courteous Governors stand every winter, with a patience and forbearance worthy of a better cause. An officer in glistening regimentals looked at my card through his eyeglass, and dutifully called out "Miss Hampden," while ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... bread-and-butter "as long as from here to Easter." No; Jeannette has fulfilled her part, providing a whiff of marjoram and cottage flowers for the castle chambers. She has read, written and said her prayers. She has the firm outline, the rosy cheeks, the simplicity of a Watteau peasant-girl—nothing of the Greuze languish, with its hint of a cruche cassee. She is as fresh as a March wind. Let us believe that she found a true man to relish her prettiness and ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... retorted laughingly. "After all that has taken place? Mon Dieu! You remember I advised you against this madness—I told you in the beginning it might not all be like Watteau's masterpiece—the divine embarkation!" ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... himself to Spanish subjects; Mr West paints Norwegian landscape; Mr Pyne sends to this gallery only his very splendid lake-pictures; and Mr Woolmer's curious sketches, which seem compounded of the styles of Turner and Watteau, blaze almost exclusively upon the walls. The best men of the National Institution contribute also to the Royal Academy—as, for example, Mr Glass, with his capital groups of hunters or troopers, so full of life and movement; and Mr Parker, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... Impressionist art is simple. In the beginning of this century the tradition of French art—the tradition of Boucher, Fragonard, and Watteau—had been completely lost; having produced genius, their art died. Ingres is the sublime flower of the classic art which succeeded the art of the palace and the boudoir: further than Ingres it was impossible to go, and his art died. Then the Turners and Constables ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... bewitching Watteau affair, with a short quilted petticoat, and a looped overdress made of the daintiest flowered silk imaginable. The petticoat was of white satin, and the overdress of palest blue, with garlands of pink roses. The pointed bodice laced ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... tea, but the flame still burned in waiting under the silver urn; books and reviews lay in reach of a lazy hand; lamps, candle-light and flowers made a soft radiance; a small griffon dozed before the fire. The decoration of the room consisted mainly in French engravings from Watteau and Chardin, in one or two fine black lacquer cabinets and in a number of jars and vases of Chinese porcelain, some standing on the floor and some on shelves, the neutral-tinted walls a background to their ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... growing hum of the season, that made one feel right in it, even if one wasn't. Everything was peacefully happy, harsh and hard things seemed unreal; the world seemed made for birds and butterflies, light sentiment, colour, perfume and gay music. In this London life seemed like a Watteau picture. ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... taking over of his estate. Under the sobering influence of these events, his class and his mother seemed for a time to recover him. He refurnished a certain number of rooms at Castle Luton, and made a special marvel of his own room, which was hung thick with Boucher, Greuze, and Watteau engravings, littered with miniatures and trinkets, and encumbered here and there with portfolios of drawings which he was not anxious to unlock in his ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... who deemed, as they wandered through the arbour-walks of this enchanting wilderness, that its beauty had been enhanced even by this very neglect. It seemed like a forest in a beautiful romance; a green and bowery wilderness where Boccaccio would have loved to woo, and Watteau to paint. So artfully had the walks been planned, that they seemed interminable, nor was there a single point in the whole pleasaunce where the keenest eye could have detected a limit. Sometimes you wandered in those arched and winding walks dear to pensive spirits; sometimes ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... except innocence; who gossip over each other's dresses, and each other's passions, in the self-same, self-satisfied chirp of contentment, and who never resent anything on earth, except any eccentric suggestion that life could be anything except a perpetual fete a la Watteau in a ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida |
