Watteau’s works sheltered in an airtight basement during the Los Angeles fires

A French-American private collector in Los Angeles has rescued works by the French painter Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) from fires in California. They are to go on display from March 8 at the Château de Chantilly, north of Paris, the museum said. Lionel Sauvage, a well-known collector at the Château de Chantilly, was to lend the “drawings and some paintings” for an exhibition on “Les Mondes de Watteau”, scheduled from March 8 to June 15, museum director Mathieu Deldicque told AFP. As fires threatened the area around his Los Angeles home, he managed to save the treasures by “locking them in a cellar” and dousing his property with water, he said. “He built an airtight cellar to protect them” from fire and water, Mathieu Deldicque explained. “He drew water from the pool to splash the house” with a hose, he said, noting that their destruction “would have been a major loss for art history” because “Watteau did not have a very long career”. The works, the exact number of which he declined to specify, are expected “probably in early February” at the Musée Condé in the Château de Chantilly, which houses the collections of the Duc d’Aumale.

Works never exhibited before

The museum’s collections already include ten works by Antoine Watteau, six drawings and four paintings. According to the director, this is the second most important public collection on Watteau after the Louvre. The exhibition will include many works that have never been exhibited before, some recently discovered and others held in private collections in Europe and the United States.

According to Mathieu Deldicque, general curator, along with two scientific curators, Axel Moulinier, PhD in art history, and Baptiste Roelly, curator at the Petit Palais-musée des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Paris, the exhibition will explore the worlds and themes that interested the painter, such as gallant feasts and black models. To present Watteau at his best, the Musée Condé has restored most of the masterpieces it owns and has loaned paintings and drawings showing the artist at his peak. The artist’s greatest specialists have also contributed to this project, which has led to many new discoveries and groundbreaking research. The exhibition allows the public to understand the sources from which he drew his inspiration, the way he constructed his compositions and the effects he sought, and to get to the heart of the genesis of some of the most enigmatic scenes ever painted. An exhibition dedicated to Watteau’s mysterious and recently restored Gilles or Pierrot is open at the Musée du Louvre until February 3.

Photo credit: Château de Chantilly