As I would trace his movements, still admitting that positive
evidence is required, Watteau returned to Paris early in 1711, took
up his quarters for a time with Sirois the dealer, who would have the
disposing of work done at Valenciennes. One of his first pictures
of this period was probably “Gilles and his Family,” in the Wallace
collection, which is supposed to be a portrait of Sirois dressed as
a Pierrot or Gilles (the names being synonymous at the period) in a
costume supplied by Watteau’s own wardrobe.
Then would come visits to the Fairs of St. Germain and St. Laurent,
whence he would return reinspired with a love for the gay, reckless,
satiric Italian comedy.
One has only to compare the Hertford House “Gilles” with the central
figure of Pierrot in the “L’Amour au Théâtre Italien” to see that one
is an earlier work and is the figure of a man somewhat self-conscious
and not quite used to the clothes he is wearing; the other a maturer
work, representing a vivid impression of a born comedian, momentarily
master of the scene. Doubtless at this time, too, would be done some,
but only some, of the remaining works dealing with the Italian stage
types, such as “Les Jaloux,” “Arlequin Jaloux,” “Comédiens Italiens,”
and “Pierrot Content.” A little after, I think, would come such works
as “Arlequin et Colombine,” (in the Wallace collection), “Mezzetin,”
and the maturer “Gilles,” in the Louvre.
In 1712 there were at the Theatres of the Fair in Paris two famous
players of Gilles or Pierrot, namely, Hamoche, who made his _début_
in that year with the St. Edmé troupe; and Belloni, who was also a
lemonade-seller, quite a popular character, notable, as one chronicle
tells us, “for the grand simplicity of his acting and for his naïve
and truthful speech.”
The most famous of the players of Arlequin was Pierre-François
(otherwise Domenique) Biancolelli, who was also of the St. Edmé
troupe, somewhere between 1710-1712.
Thus it was not unlikely that Watteau saw these actors, as he may
have seen another, Delaplace, as Scaramouche, and Desgranges, who
came to Paris from Lyons, in 1712, as “the Doctor”; though the
Mezzetin offers a minor problem in that Angelo Constantini, the most
famous impersonator of the character, after suffering banishment with
the Italian comedians in 1697, went to Poland, where an intrigue
with the Queen resulted in his imprisonment for twenty years, by
which time Watteau was no more. Him, therefore, Watteau cannot have
seen. But the character was a familiar one on the stage at the time,
1710-1712, and must have been played by other popular actors, even if
not of sufficient note to be chronicled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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