The Dreamer (La Rêveuse)

1712/14

Jean Antoine Watteau
French, 1684-1721

The traditional title of this small painting, The Dreamer, derives from an engraving made after it, which was intended for sale to a wider audience. The work is one of a number of small figure paintings by Jean-Antoine Watteau in which the subject’s clothing was inspired by contemporary theater. Here, the woman wears a pseudo-Turkish costume, which reflects the Western European vogue for Turkish culture (“turquerie”) at that time. Watteau’s uniquely delicate, sensitive, and intimate style influenced a number of other painters throughout the 18th century.

Status: On View, Gallery 216
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Jean Antoine Watteau
Title: The Dreamer (La Rêveuse)
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1712–1714
Medium: Oil on panel
Dimensions: 23.2 × 17 cm (9 1/8 × 6 11/16 in.)
Credit Line: Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection
Reference Number: 1960.305
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/12007/manifest.json

P[ierre] Hédouin, “Watteau III: Catalogue de son oeuvre,” L’Artiste: Revue de Paris 4th ser., 5 (1845), p. 78, no. 45.
Edmond de Goncourt, Catalogue raisonné de l’oeuvre peint, dessiné et grave d’Antoine Watteau, Paris, 1875, p. 82, no. 88.
John W. Mollet, Watteau, New York and London, 1883, p. 66, no. 88.
Paul Leroi, “M. Jules Burat,” L’Art: Revue illustrée 38, (1885), p. 169 (ill. with engraving by Léon Gaucherel following p. 171).
Paul Eudel, L’Hôtel Drouot et la curiosité en 1884–1885, Paris, 1886, pp. 355, 367.
Paul Eudel, L’Hôtel Drouot et la curiosité en 1885–1886, Paris, 1887, p. 436.
Louis de Fourcaud, “Antoine Watteau: Scènes et figures galantes (premier article),” La Revue de L’Art Ancien et Moderne 16 (1904) pp. 345, 350, (ill. with engraving by Aveline), 353, 354.
Emile Dacier, Catalogues de ventes et livrets de salons illustrés par Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, vol. 2. Paris, 1910, pt. 3, p. 29 (p. 47 of sale cat. facsimile).
Emile Dacier, Jacques Hérold and Albert Vuaflart, Jean de Jullienne et les graveurs de Watteau au XVIIIe siècle, 4 Vols., Paris, 1921–1929; vol. 1, Hérold and Vuaflart, 1929, pp. 117, 178, 264, under no. 166; vol. 3, Dacier and Vuaflart, 1922, p. 82, under no. 166.
Georges Wildenstein, Lancret. Paris, 1924, p. 117, no.704, fig. 202 (engraving by Léon Gaucherel).
Louis Réau, “Watteau,” in Louis Dimier, Les Peintres Français du XVIIIe siècle: Historie des vies et catalogue des oeuvres, vol 1, Paris and Brussels, 1928, pp. 38–39, no. 100.
Hélène Adhémar, Watteau: Sa Vie - son oeuvre. Paris, 1950, p. 219, no. 145, pl. 77.
R[aymond] Charmet, “De Watteau à Prud’hon,”in Arts, Spectacles, No. 567 (1956), p. 14 (ill.).
Alexandre Ananoff, L’Oeuvre dessiné de Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806), vol. 2, Paris, 1963, p. 195, under no. 1123.
I[nna] S. Nemilova, Watteau et ses oeuvres à l’Ermitage (in Russian, with French summary), Leningrad, 1964, pp. 87, 92, 158, 173 n. 21, fig. 40.
John Maxon, “Some Recent Acquisitions,” Apollo 84 (September 1966), p. 221, fig. 5.
Ettore Camesasca and John Sunderland, The Complete Paintings of Watteau, New York, 1968, pp. 113–14, no. 165 (ill.).
Giovanni Macchia and E. C. Montagni, L’opera completa di Watteau, Classici dell’arte 21, Milan, 1968, pp. 113–14, no. 165 (ill.).
John Maxon, The Art institute of Chicago, London, 1970, p. 261 (ill.).
Jean Ferré et al, Watteau, Madrid, 1972, vol. 1, pp. 206–07, 214, chronology (n. p.), under “1885,” vol. 4, pp. 1111, 1120.
Yvonne Boerlin-Brodbeck, “Antoine Watteau und das Theater,” Ph.D. diss., Universität Basel, 1973, pp. 171, 176, 318 n. 435.
I[nna] S. Nemilova, The Enigmas of Old Paintings (in Russian), Moscow, 1973, p. 150, fig. 38.
John David Farmer, “A New Painting by François Boucher,” Art Institute of Chicago Bulletin 68, 2 (1974), p. 18 (ill.).
Kimio Nakayama, Watteau (in Japanese), Tokyo, 1976, p. 107, no. 29 (ill.), pl. 29.
The Art Institute of Chicago, 100 Masterpieces, Chicago, 1978, p. 67, no. 28, pl. 28.
John D. Morse, Old Master Paintings in North America, New York, 1979, p. 298.
Marianne Roland Michel, Watteau, Milan, 1981, p. 42, no. 120 (ill.).
Nicole Parmantier, “Watteau, 1684–1721,” Le Petit Journal des grandes expositions 146 (1984), n. pag.
Donald Posner, Antoine Watteau, London 1984, pp. 47, 256, fig. 39.
Marianne Roland Michel, Watteau: An Artist of the Eighteenth Century, New York, 1984, p. 156, fig. 143.
Pascale Thuillant, L’Exposition des trois tiers (indiscutable, controversables, inacceptables)… ou un édifiant dialogue avec Jean Ferré,” L’Amateur d’art 710 (1984), p. 8.
Wolfgang Sauré, “Malerisches Spiel zwischen Sein und Schein: Die Kunst von Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684–1721),” Die Kunst 97 (1985), p. 197, fig. 8.
Pierre Rosenberg, “Watteau: Le Recueil de Valenciennes,” La Revue du Louvre 36, (1986), p. 288.
Margaret Morgan Grasseli, “The Drawings of Antoine Watteau: Stylistic Development and Problems of Chronology,” Ph. D. diss., Harvard University, 1987 (Ann Arbor, Michigan, University Microfilms, 1988), vol. 1, p. 208, vol. 2 fig. 227.
Alan P. Wintermute in Claude to Corot: The Development of Landscape Painting in France, exh. cat., New York, Colnaghi, 1990, p. 122.
Kimio Nakayama, L’Oeuvre complet de Watteau (in Japanese, with captions in French), Tokyo, 1991, pp. 213–14, no. 29 (ill.), 272 (ill.), pl. 29.
Susan Wise and Malcolm Warner, French and British Paintings from 1600 to 1800 in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Collection (Chicago, 1996), pp. 169–174, ill.
Helmut Börsch-Supan, Antoine Watteau 1684-1721 (Cologne, 2000), p. 75, fig. 64.
Marie-Laure de Rochebrune, Le guéridon de madame du Barry (Paris, 2002), p. 24, fig. 24.

Paris, Société de protection des alsaciens et lorrains demeurés français, Ouvrages de peinture exposés au profit de la colonisation de l’Algérie par les Alsaciens-Lorrains au Palais de la Présidence ou Corps législatif…, 1874, no. 526.
Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, L’Art du XVIIIe siècle, 1883-84, no. 145.
New York, Wildenstein, Fashion in Headdress 1450 - 1943, April 27 - May 27, 1943, no. 36.
Paris, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, De Watteau a Prud’hon, May 11 - 31, 1956, no. 95.
Baltimore, Baltimore Museum of Art, Age of Elegance: The Rococo and its Effect, April 25 to June 14, 1959, no. 35.
Toledo, The Toledo Museum of Art, The Age of Louis XV, French Painting 1710-1774, 1975, no. 120, pl. 17; traveled to Chicago and Ottawa.
Chicago, Art Institute, Selected Works of 18th Century French Art in the Collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1976, no. 2.
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Watteau 1684-1721, 1984, no. P26; traveled to Paris and Berlin.

Possibly the abbé Pierre Maurice Haranger (died 1735), canon of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, Paris; [based on Pierre Jean Mariette, Notes, Mss. IX, fol. 191[9] Bibliotehèque Nationale, Paris; see Wise 1996]. Comte du Barry, Paris; sold Remy and Le Brun, Paris, November 21 and following, 1774, no. 132, for 190 livres [supported by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin’s sketch in his copy of the sale catalogue in the Musée du Petit Palais, Paris]. Anne Pierre, marquis de Montesquiou, Paris; sold Le Brun, Paris, December 9 and following, 1788, no. 214 [une dame ajustée dans le costume Turc: elle est coëffée d’un bonnet ou turban, la tête tournée de trois quarts sur l’épaule droite, assise sur un tertie dans un fond de paysage. Hauteur 8 pounces 4 lig. largeur 6 pounces. B.” (A woman dressed in a Turkish costume; she is wearing a bonnet or turban, the head turned three quarters toward the right shoulder, seated on a mound in a landscape background. Height 8 pouces 4 lig., width 6 pouces. Panel]. Jules Burat (died 1885), Paris, by 1866; sold Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, April 28 - 29, 1885, no. 109 (ill. with engraving by Léon Gaucherel), as Lancret, to Laurent-Richard for Fr 7,000 [Eudel 1886 states that Burat acquired the picture in 1865; price and buyer at the Burat sale are given in a annotated catalogue of the Frick Art Reference Library]. Vincent Claude Laurent-Richard (died 1886), Paris; sold Galerie Georges Petit, May 28-29, 1886, no. 29 (ill. with engraving by Gaucherel), as Lancret, to Blumenthal for Fr 6,200 [see Rosenberg in Paris/Washington/Berlin 1984, no. P26; the price is given in an annotated catalogue at the Frick Art Reference Library]; Willy Blumenthal, (died 1937) Paris, to at least 1929 [Dacier, Hérold, and Vuaflart 1929, p. 178]. Acquired by Wildenstein, Paris, though an intermediary, 1935; transferred to Wildenstein, New York, 1938 [information kindly supplied by Ah-Whang Hsia, Wildenstein, letter of July 18, 2006 in curatorial file]; sold to the Art Institute, 1960.

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