Printed from Woolley & Wallis

Description

After Jean-Antoine Watteau

La Cascade

Oil on canvas

70.4 x 60.5cm; 27¾ x 23¾in

Provenance:

Alfred de Rothschild (1842-1918);

Lionel de Rothschild (1882-1942);

Edmund de Rothschild (1916-2009);

The Trustees of Exbury House

Literature:

Charles Davis, A description of the Works of Art Forming the Collection of Alfred de Rothschild, vol. 1 (London, 1884), no. 74 (illustrated);

Ernst Heinrich Zimmermann, Watteau, des Meisters Werke (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1912), no.131;

Émile Dacier, Albert Vuaflart, and Jacques Hérold, Jean de Jullienne et les graveurs au XVIIIe siècle, 4 vols, (Paris, 1921-29), under cat. no. 28;

Louis Réau, 'Watteau' in Louis Dimier, ed., Les Peintres français du XVIIIe siècle, 2 vols. (Paris and Brussels, 1928), under cat. no. 81;

Hélène Adhémar and René Huyghe, Antoine Watteau, sa vie-son oeuvre (Paris: 1950), under cat. no. 116;

Giovanni Macchia and Ettore C. Montagni, L'opera completa di Watteau (Milan, 1968), under cat. no. 133

Exhibited:

London, Royal Academy, Works by the Old Masters, 1889, no. 83

Several copies of La Cascade are known, and in the early part of the 20th Century, some scholars believed this version to be the original. However, today the prime version is generally considered to be a work that last appeared at auction in 1980 (Galerie Koller, Zurich, 16-17 May 1980, lot 5182).