Oil paint on oak
Tate Collection
Works with images
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Turner Bequest
Oil paintings
Collection
Turner owned by Tate
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joseph-mallord-william-turner-558" aria-label="More by Joseph Mallord William Turner" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Joseph Mallord William Turner</a>
Watteau by Fresnoys Rules
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
adults
architecture
artist, painter
arts and entertainment
cloth
door
features
fine art and design, named works
fine arts and music
Fresnoy, Charles Alphonse du, ‘De Arte Graphica’
group
groups
instrument, lute
interiors
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
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miscellaneous
named individuals
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Watteau, Antoine
Watteau, painting, ‘Les Plaisirs du Bal’
weather
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work and occupations
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<p>This painting is a tribute to the eighteenth-century French painter, Antoine Watteau. Turner exhibited it in 1831, as the companion piece to Lucy, Countess of Carlisle… shown on the far left. It illustrates a colouristic principle of the theorist CA du Fresnoy, that white ‘may bear an object back, or bring it near’.</p><p>Watteau appears in the centre, surrounded by admirers and examples of his work which Turner knew, including Les Plaisirs du Bal (the large painting on the left, now in Dulwich College Gallery) and La Lorgneuse (‘The Flirt’, the smaller framed picture) owned by his friend, the poet Samuel Rogers.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2004</em></p>
painting oil paint oak
4 July 2002 – 29 September 2002
2002-09-29
4 July 2002 – 29 September 2002
2002-09-29
2002-07-04
National Trust: Petworth House (Petworth, UK)
2002-07-04
Turner at Petworth
Loan-out
15 July 2002 – 21 May 2007
2007-05-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2002-07-15
Exhibiting Turner
Collection based display
6 February 2003 – 4 January 2004
2004-01-04
6 February 2003 – 11 May 2003
2003-05-11
2003-02-06
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
8 June 2003 – 7 September 2003
2003-09-07
2003-06-08
Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis, USA)
7 October 2003 – 4 January 2004
2004-01-04
2003-10-07
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA)
http://www.metmuseum.org
2003-02-06
Constable to Delacroix: British Art and the French Romantics 1820 - 1840
Exhibition
28 May 2007 – 27 July 2009
2009-07-27
28 May 2007
2007-05-28
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2007-05-28
A Turner Gallery
Collection based display
21 September 2009 – 19 September 2010
2010-09-19
21 September 2009 – 24 January 2010
2010-01-24
2009-09-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
22 February 2010 – 23 May 2010
2010-05-23
2010-02-22
Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais (Paris, France)
21 June 2010 – 19 September 2010
2010-09-19
2010-06-21
Museo Nacional del Prado (Madrid, Spain)
2009-09-21
Turner and the Masters
Exhibition
22 February 2010 – 19 September 2010
2010-09-19
21 September 2009 – 3 January 2010
2010-01-03
2009-09-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
22 February 2010 – 23 May 2010
2010-05-23
2010-02-22
Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais (Paris, France)
21 June 2010 – 19 September 2010
2010-09-19
2010-06-21
Museo Nacional del Prado (Madrid, Spain)
2010-02-22
Turner and the Masters
Loan-out
Watteau Study by Fresnoy’s Rules
support: 400 × 692 mm
frame: 745 × 1040 × 160 mm
Accepted by the nation as part of the <a href="/search?gid=999999781" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Turner Bequest</a> 1856
<div class="para3">
<span class="text13">This <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> is a tribute to the eighteenth-century      French painter, </span><span class="text12">Antoine Watteau. Turner      exhibited it in 1831, as the companion piece to </span><span class="text15">Lucy</span><span class="text12">, </span><span class="text16">Countess      of Carlisle</span><span class="text14">… shown on the far</span><span class="text12"> left. It illustrates a colouristic principle  </span><span class="text14">of the theorist CA du Fresnoy, that white ‘may bear an      object back, or bring it near’.</span><span class="text12">
<br/> </span>
</div>
<div class="para7">
<span class="text12">
<br/> </span>
</div>
<div class="para3">
<span class="text13">Watteau appears in the centre,</span><span class="text12"> </span><span class="text14">surrounded by admirers and examples  
of his work which Turner knew, including </span><span class="text16">Les      Plaisirs du Bal</span><span class="text14"> (the large painting on  the      left, now in Dulwich College Gallery) and </span><span class="text16">La      Lorgneuse</span><span class="text14"> (‘The Flirt’, the smaller      framed picture) owned by his friend, the </span><span class="text12">poet      Samuel Rogers. </span>
</div>

Display caption
2004-09-08T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>340. </b>[<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-watteau-study-by-fresnoys-rules-n00514" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00514</span></a>]<b> Watteau Study by Fresnoy's Rules</b> Exh. 1831</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (514)</p>
<p>Oil, approx. 15 3/4 × 27 1/4 (40 × 69·5), on oak panel, 16 × 27 9/16 (40·5 × 70); original framing members, 20 × 31 3/4 (51 × 80·5)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (23, ‘Watteau Painting’ 2'3 1/2" × 1'3 1/2"); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1905.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> R.A. 1831 (298); R.A. 1974–5 (334).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Thornbury 1862, i, p. 320; 1877, p. 447; Bell 1901, p. 117 no. 175; Armstrong 1902, p. 236; MacColl 1920, pp. 16–17; Davies 1946, p. 186; Finberg 1961, pp. 326–7, 491 no. 361; Herrmann 1963, p. 24; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, pp. 42, 45, pl. 81; Gage 1965, pp. 75–6; Lindsay 1966, pp. 108–9; Gage 1969, pp. 91–2, 170; Reynolds 1969, pp. 138–41, pl. 124; Herrmann 1975, p. 38, pl. 136; Wilton 1979, pp. 205–8; Finley 1979<sup>2</sup>, pp. 241–7, pl. 40; Youngblood 1983, p. 17.</p>
<p>Number 5 on Turner's list of his R.A. exhibits for 1831 and exhibited with the following lines:</p>
<p>‘White, when it shines with unstained lustre clear,
<br/>May bear an object back, or bring it near.’</p>
<p align="right"><i>Fresnoy's Art of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>Painting</span></a></i>, 496.</p>
<p>The quotation comes from William Mason's translation of Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy's <i>De Arte Graphica</i>, first published with annotations by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1783 and re-issued in <i>The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds</i>, edited by Edmond Malone, 1797. The complete section xxxiv, ‘of White and Black’, reads:</p>
<p>White, when it shines with unstain'd lustre clear
<br/>May bear an object back or bring it near.
<br/>Aided by black, it to the front aspires;
<br/>That aid withdrawn, it distantly retires;
<br/>But black unmix'd of darkest midnight hue,
<br/>Still calls each object nearer to the view.</p>
<p>Turner illustrates this theory with a tribute to Watteau, just as the companion <i>Lord Percy under Attainder</i> (No. 338 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-lucy-countess-of-carlisle-and-dorothy-percys-visit-to-their-father-lord-percy-when-n00515" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00515</span></a>]) was a tribute to Van Dyck. Among the pictures shown in the background are Watteau's <i>Les Plaisirs du Bal</i> (which was already in the Dulwich College Picture Gallery), but in reverse as in Gerard Scotin's <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/engraving" title="Glossary definition for 'Engraving'"><span>engraving</span></a> and greatly enlarged, and <i>La Lorgneuse</i> which then belonged to Turner's friend Samuel Rogers. For a more complex and subtle interpretation of this pair of pictures see Finley, <i>loc. cit.</i></p>
<p>See No. 338 [<span>N00515</span>] for Turner's use of a cupboard door as the support for this picture. Like that picture <i>Watteau Study</i> has an <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/i/iconography" title="Glossary definition for 'Iconography'"><span>iconographic</span></a> link with Petworth in that the scene of an artist at work in a room with a number of bystanders is most clearly paralleled among the Petworth body-colours on blue <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/paper" title="Glossary definition for 'Paper'"><span>paper</span></a>, though these are, of course, contemporary scenes (e.g., CCXLIV-102; repr. exh. cat., R.A. 1974–5, p. 114 no. 358).</p>
<p>As in the case of the companion picture contemporary critics were on the whole surprisingly complimentary, showing an appreciation of Turner's special effects of colour. Who but Turner, asked the <i>Library of the Fine Arts</i> for June 1831, could have painted this picture ‘with its almost impossible effects produced on principles directly opposed to those generally adopted, his lights merging in depths, his depths thrown deeper by his lights, and this all in a mere sketch and apparently produced without effort?’ The <i>Athenaeum</i> for 21 May called it ‘of the wildest of this artist's colouring fancies’ but went on, ‘What a trifle in the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/t/tone" title="Glossary definition for 'Tone'"><span>tone</span></a> would destroy the beauty. We have not seen this picture commended, but to our taste it is full of delicacy and beauty and is a rich gem.’ Alas, the picture can no longer be restored to its original condition.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, <i>The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner</i>, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-22T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults architecture artist, painter arts and entertainment cloth door features fine art and design, named works fine arts and music Fresnoy, Charles Alphonse du, ‘De Arte Graphica’ group groups instrument, lute interiors literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) man miscellaneous named individuals objects painting people studio sunbeam vase vessels and containers Watteau, Antoine Watteau, painting, ‘Les Plaisirs du Bal’ weather woman work and occupations workspaces