Sketch with Two Figures

Jean-Antoine Watteau made this countless figure studies that fed into his finished this paintings. This sketch captures two figures with the graceful, fluid lines that characterize his draftsmanship.

Watteau invented the fête galante genre, depicting aristocratic figures in parkland settings. His drawings were so prized that collectors bound them into albums after his early death at thirty-six. This study resides at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, Britain's oldest public museum with a fine collection of Rococo drawings.