Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721)

Jean-Antoine Watteau was the most representative painter of the French Rococo* style, an artist beside whom the painterly talents of his contemporaries (like the Venetian Giambattista Tiepolo, and the Frenchmen Francois Boucher and Jean-Honore Fragonard) are measured. He was born at Valenciennes - the town had only recently been ceded to France, and during his lifetime he was considered a Flemish artist - and his early years are obscure.

He trained under local artists, and arrived in Paris in 1702 as an assistant to one of them, a painter of scenery for the Paris Opera. This was probably Watteau's first contact with the theatre. He later became infatuated with it.

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