A private Franco-American collector from Los Angeles was able to save works by the French painter Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) from fires in California. They are expected at the Château de Chantilly, north of Paris, for an exhibition, the museum said on Wednesday January 22.
This well-known collector from the Chantilly castle museum, Lionel Sauvage, was to lend these “drawings and some paintings” as part of an exhibition on Watteau’s Worldsscheduled from March 8 to June 15, Mathieu Deldicque, director of the establishment, told AFP.
As fires threatened the area where his Los Angeles home is located, he managed to save these treasures “by locking them in a cellar” and watering his property, he reported.
“He had an airtight cellar built to protect them” fire or water, explained Mathieu Deldicque. “He drew water from his swimming pool to water around his house” with a garden hose, he said, emphasizing that their destruction “would have been a significant loss for the history of art” car “Watteau didn’t have a very long career.”
The works, of which he did not wish to specify the exact number, are expected “probably early February” at the Condé museum at the Château de Chantilly, which houses the collections of the Duke of Aumale.
-The museum’s collections already include a set of ten works by Antoine Watteau, six drawings and four paintings. It is the second most important public collection in Watteau, after that of the Louvre, according to the director.
The exhibition will feature many never-before-exhibited works, some recently discovered and others held in private collections in Europe or the United States.
It aims to explore the worlds and themes that interested the painter such as gala nights, otherness, black models, according to Mathieu Deldicque, general curator alongside two scientific curators, Axel Moulinier, doctor in history of the art, and Baptiste Roelly, curator at the Petit Palais-museum of Fine Arts in the city of Paris.
An exhibition dedicated to the mysterious Gilles or Pierrot de Watteau, recently restored, is in progress at the Louvre Museum until February 3.
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