Jean de Jullienne after Watteau: Comédien debout

Plate 148 from from the volume II of the publication ‘Figures De Différents Caracteres, de Paysages, & d'Etudes Dessinées D'Après Nature Par Antoine Watteau Peintre du Roy en son Académie Royale de Peinture et Sculpture Gravées àl'Eau forte par des plus habiles Peintres et Graveurs du Temps Tirées Des Plus Beaux Cabinets De Paris’ [Figures Of Different Characters, Landscapes, & Studies Drawn From Nature By Antoine Watteau Painter Of The Roy In His Royal Academy Of Painting And Sculpture Engraved With Etching By The Most Skillful Painters And Engravers Of The Time Drawn From The Most Beautiful Cabinets in Paris], known as the Recueil Jullienne.

It is after a drawing in sanguine now at the Haarlem, Teylers Museum (inv. M 15).

At his death, Watteau bequeathed more than 4000 drawings to four of his friends, among whom was Jean de Jullienne. He paid Watteau’s drawings an extraordinary compliment by publishing at his own expense two volumes of etchings that reproduced 351 of them. Jullienne was an amateur painter, engraver and musician; at the same time, he was the managing director of a factory attached to the Gobelins. Later he became de Jullienne, and the owner of the business. He became Watteau’s friend and greatest champion.

In total, de Jullienne etched 17 plates in the "Figures de Différents Characteres” publication. They are all signed as ‘J’ under the image on the right.

 

Inventaire du Fonds Français Graveurs du XVIII Siecle, Vol.XII, p.237, 1973;

Pierre Rosenberg, Antoine Watteau 1684-1721: Catalogue Raisonné des Dessins, 1997.