Detail of La Perspective by Watteau in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, June 2010

La Perspective (View through the Trees in the Park of Pierre Crozat)
about 1715
Antoine Watteau, French, 1684–1721

Dimensions: 46.7 x 55.3 cm (18 3/8 x 21 3/4 in.)

Medium or Technique: Oil on canvas

Classification: Paintings
Type: Genre - Exterior

Accession Number: 23.573

Watteau developed and made famous a type of painting of the elegant party, called the fête galante, in which ladies and gentlemen converse, flirt, and make music in idyllic outdoor settings. This is his only fête galante with an identifiable setting: in the distance, Watteau shows the Château de Montmorency near Paris, home of his friend and patron, the art collector and financier Pierre Crozat. The artist freely transformed the site, creating a dreamlike fantasy world evocative of the theater with its backdrop of towering trees and graceful groupings of figures in old-fashioned dress.

Text from: www.mfa.org/collections/object/la-perspective-view-throug...