Jean-Antoine Watteau

c. 1684 – 18 July 1721

Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) was a French painter who invigorated the transition from Baroque to Rococo and invented the fête galante, a genre of elegant outdoor courtship scenes. Despite dying of tuberculosis at 36, works such as the Pilgrimage to Cythera made him one of the most influential French painters of the eighteenth century.

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Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Jean-Antoine Watteau.

Life events

Born in Valenciennes
c. 1684

Jean-Antoine Watteau was baptized on 10 October 1684 in Valenciennes, a town recently annexed by France from the Spanish Netherlands.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Birth ✓
Moved to Paris
c. 1702

Around 1702 Watteau moved to Paris, where he initially worked as a copyist in a workshop on the Pont Notre-Dame.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Worked in the studio of Claude Gillot
c. 1705 – c. 1708

Under the painter Claude Gillot, Watteau was introduced to the commedia dell'arte characters that populate much of his work.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Education ✓
Worked with the decorative painter Claude Audran III at the Luxembourg Palace
c. 1708

As assistant to Claude Audran III, keeper of the Luxembourg Palace, Watteau studied Rubens's Marie de' Medici cycle firsthand.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Education ✓
Won second place in the Prix de Rome competition
1709

Watteau took second prize in the Academy's Prix de Rome competition but never made the trip to Italy.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Achievement ✓
Received into the Royal Academy with the Pilgrimage to Cythera
28 August 1717

Watteau was received as a full member of the Académie royale with his reception piece the Pilgrimage to Cythera, admitted in the new category of fêtes galantes.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Traveled to London, possibly to consult the physician Richard Mead
1719 – 1720

Watteau spent about a year in London, where his declining health worsened in the city's climate.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Relocation ✓
Painted the shop sign of the art dealer Gersaint (L'Enseigne de Gersaint)
c. 1720

Back in Paris, Watteau painted the celebrated shop sign for his friend the dealer Edme-François Gersaint, one of his final masterpieces.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Achievement ✓
Died of tuberculosis at Nogent-sur-Marne
18 July 1721

Watteau died at Nogent-sur-Marne near Paris at the age of 36, probably of tuberculosis.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Death ✓