The Old Savoyardc. 1715
An elderly, bearded man carries a crate and pack on his back, sketched from life in red and black chalk. More about this work
About this work
An elderly, bearded man carries a crate and pack on his back, sketched from life in red and black chalk. He is a Savoyard, one of the poor itinerant performers from the Alpine region of Savoy who tramped the streets of Paris with peep-show boxes or performing marmots. Watteau often drew such street figures, and his use of two or three colours of chalk, here modelling the weathered face and heavy clothing, became one of the most admired drawing techniques of the eighteenth century.
Written by Ochre Editions.
What you’re looking at
Chalk drawing with red and black shading of man carrying crate and pack.
Description from the Art Institute of Chicago.
How it was made
- Chalk
- Natural black, red and white chalks. Used together on toned paper they could give the warmth of flesh with very little effort, and they were favourites for studies from life.
- Laid paper
- Handmade on a mould of close-set wires, which leave fine parallel lines you can see when the sheet is held to the light.
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.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Art Institute of Chicago has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1964.74
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Type
- Drawing and Watercolor
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
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