21enseig Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721)

Description of Jean Antoine Watteau’s painting "Gersen’s Shop Sign".

Jean Antoine Watteau was the son of a roofer who was addicted to drawing from childhood. As a young boy, with no means of livelihood, he serially copied paintings by the masters of painting. The reproductions, which today are created with digital printing, young Watteau repainted - each one separately. However, despite his endless diligence, the future artist had an extremely intractable character, and so often changed teachers and employers. He remained the longest apprentice with Claude Gillot, taking from his mentor a passion for depicting theatrical scenes and the lives of actors. The genre of his work was later called "Gallant Feast" - after the name of one of his paintings. Works by Watteau were extremely popular with his contemporaries.

The painting "The sign of the shop Gersen" - the last that the artist had time to draw before his death. Gersen was a friend of Jean Antoine, and the gravely ill artist lived with him for the last year of his life. Jersen had recently purchased an antique store and offered to paint a sign for his acquisition. As such, the sign wasn’t really needed; Jersen was merely trying to keep his dying friend busy with some work. But the painting succeeded; today it is considered the artist’s best work, his "swan song. Despite its large size, unusual for the artist, it was painted in just one week, with Watteau working only in the mornings. It is the only work by the artist where the action takes place in the interior, not in the background of the landscape.

The hanging was painted on two separate canvases inserted into a single frame - probably just couldn’t find a canvas of the right size. The antique store depicted by the artist is floor-to-ceiling hung with paintings. In the left corner, the servants pack an antique portrait in a box. On the right, prospective buyers are examining the merchandise. It is believed that under the guise of a simple sign, Watteau presented the history of painting as he imagined it.