The stage has from time to time been indebted to Watteau for costume and _décor_. But Watteau’s debt to the stage of his period, to the Opera, to the Italian Comedy, and to the Theatres of the Fair, has hardly been considered sufficiently. Here is not the place to bring forward all the evidence that could be produced. Only an indication of some of the leading possibilities can be given. But while the subject has an interest of its own, on the purely critical side, it is also of interest to students of the ballet, for they may trace in some of the famous French pictures of the early eighteenth century the influence of ballet on contemporary art. Again, history “repeats itself” to-day, for have not many artists of our own time found inspiration in many of the productions of the Russian ballet? It is interesting first to compare Watteau’s picture of “L’Amour au Théâtre Italien” with the reproductions given here from an old volume in my possession, Riccoboni’s _Histoire du Théâtre Italien_, which was not published until six years after Watteau’s death, but which may be regarded as a contemporary work since it describes the stage of his time. These prints represent the various types of the Italian comedy as they were actually costumed, and comparing these with the figures in Watteau’s group, one sees in their close resemblance proof that the master was painting from things seen, from life itself (albeit stage life), not some graceful creations of his own imagination, as some of us to-day have been too apt to think. In “L’Amour au Théâtre Italien” we have a faithful record of costumes actually worn; but the whole attitude of the group of figures suggests something vastly more than merely an artist’s study of costume. The figures are alert, the moment dramatic. Something is happening, or rather has happened, and there is a suggestion of culmination, as if the interruption of a song by the entry of a character had called forth, or was about to call forth, some whimsical comment from Pierrot, the singer. It seems a captured moment in a comedy. Comparing it with the obviously companion picture, “L’Amour au Théâtre Français,” one might well be somewhat puzzled by the title, since in neither is there any apparent love-scene taking place. The one suggests an interruption in a comedy, the other--a dance in progress. Beneath the engravings of these two by C. N. Cochin in the Jullienne collection, however, are inscribed a couple of six-line stanzas, one beneath each, in which the treatment of love themes in Italian and French comedies respectively is contrasted. L’AMOUR AU THÉÂTRE FRANÇAIS