March and April (part of a set illustrating the months of the year)
second quarter 18th century
Medium
Oil on panel; wood frame, painted yellow and gilded
Dimensions
Overall: 116 × 15 1/2 in. (294.6 × 39.4 cm)
Classification
Woodwork|Paintings-Decorative|Paintings
Culture
French
Department
European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1922
Accession Number
22.225.4
Tags
Art Historical Context
Antoine Watteau’s *March and April* forms part of an elegant series of decorative panels depicting the months of the year. Created in the second quarter of the eighteenth century, these works reflect the refined tastes of French aristocratic interiors during the Rococo period. Watteau, celebrated for his lighthearted fêtes galantes, here turns his attention to seasonal rhythms, capturing the transition from winter’s end to spring’s renewal through scenes of men, horses, and budding leaves. Painted in oil on panel and set within a gilded wooden frame, the elongated format—nearly ten feet tall ...
About the Artist
Antoine Watteau · 1684–1721
Jean-Antoine Watteau, born in 1684 in Valenciennes to a modest family—his father a roofer named Jean-Philippe Watteau—was the second of four sons who displayed an early passion for art. After initial apprenticeship under local painter Jacques-Albert Gérin, he moved to Paris around 1702, working in workshops copying Flemish and Dutch genre scenes. By 1705, he entered the studio of Claude Gillot, ab...