# Mezzetin

**Antoine Watteau** (French, 1684–1721)  
ca. 1718–20  
Oil on canvas  
21 3/4 x 17 in. (55.2 x 43.2 cm)

Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 34.138. [The museum's record](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437926).

## About this work

Mezzetin, a stock character of the Italian comedy, sits on a garden bench and sings to his guitar, head thrown back and eyes raised, his striped costume glowing against dark foliage. Behind him a stone statue of a woman turns her back, an ironic reply to his lovesick serenade. Watteau, who died at thirty-six, made the world of the theatre central to a new kind of painting, the fête galante, in which music, costume and longing mingle. The tension in the strumming hands and the flicker of light on the silk show his close study of figures drawn from life.

_Written by Ochre Editions._

Antoine Watteau painted this in about 1718–20, aged about 34. It is now at The Met in New York.

### How it was made

- **Oil paint.** Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.

### [Antoine Watteau](https://www.ochreeditions.com/artists/antoine-watteau)

French, 1684–1721; born in Valenciennes; died in Nogent-sur-Marne

Watteau came to Paris from Valenciennes, worked with the theatre painter Claude Gillot and the decorator Claude Audran, and studied Rubens’s Medici cycle at the Luxembourg Palace. In 1717 the Academy received him with a new category, the fête galante, for his Pilgrimage to Cythera: elegant figures in parkland, often in theatre costume, touched with melancholy. His chalk drawings, frequently in red, black and white, are among the finest of the century. He died of tuberculosis at thirty-six.

_Written by Ochre Editions._

## Facts

- Type: Paintings
- The artist was about 34
- Real size: about 22 × 17 in (55 × 43 cm). The original is larger than our largest print, 11 × 14 in, so every print is a reduction.
- Century: 18th century
- Subjects: Men, Music, Guitars, Actors
- Colour: olive
- Rights: public domain (CC0 1.0); free to use for any purpose.

## Get it

- Free download, full resolution: https://img.ochreeditions.com/m/1176.jpg?dl=1
- Image: https://img.ochreeditions.com/a/1176/1920.jpg
- Giclée reproduction on Hahnemühle Photo Rag: 8 × 10 in $28; 11 × 14 in $38
- Framed reproduction: 8 × 10 in $78; 11 × 14 in $98
- Canvas reproduction: 8 × 10 in $58
- Print-ready file: 8 × 10 in $2; 11 × 14 in $2

Sizes stop where the museum's file would print below 150 pixels per inch. Everything sold is a reproduction, made to order. [Order a print](https://www.ochreeditions.com/art/mezzetin-met-437926).