Portrait of Antoine de la Roque, Jean Antoine Watteau, 1718 by Natasja Tollenaar

About "Portrait of Antoine de la Roque, Jean Antoine Watteau, 1718"

by Natasja Tollenaar

About the artwork

Antoine de la Rock, a friend of Vateau, benefited from his literary talent when he lost a leg in the war and became the editor-in-chief of the magazine "Mercure de France" and the screenwriter of the opera.

The instruments and books beside him are reminiscent of his second life. Moreover, the muse and faun drawn on the right side of the screen create an allegorical and mythical atmosphere. A unique work that has both a mythological atmosphere and a portrait of a friend. A masterpiece that shines with Watteau's solid skill, who developed the rural pastoral hobby in rococo fashion and opened up the genre of elegant banquet paintings.

The women in the back are naked. The maids are accompanied by male fauns. A woman sits in the light, with her torso with both breasts exposed on the portrait. The girl in the middle sits topless with one tit exposed. The model on the right is standing on the artwork with her back bared with one breast. The men are standing topless with their torso on the painting.

All in all a sexy and sensual erotic picture with romance.

Jean Antoine Watteau (Valencine, 10 October 1684 - Nogent-sur-Marne, 18 July 1721) was a French painter of the Rococo period. Watteau's hometown, the Hainaut Valencine had been conquered by the French in 1678. for which it fell under the Spanish Netherlands (Belgium). Watteau's work marked the beginning of a new style in France, the Rococo; frivolous rather than pompous, asymmetrical rather than symmetrical,