DIVINITÃ CHINOISE
Medium
Bound print
Classification
Bound print
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Purchased for the Museum by the Advisory Council
Accession Number
1921-6-224-76
About this artwork
Research in Progress
Art Historical Context
**DIVINITÉ CHINOISE *Antoine Watteau (French, 1684–1721), 1723–1735* Bound print; Smithsonian American Art Museum oine Watteau, a master of the Rococo, is celebrated for his dreamy fêtes galantes—elegant outdoor scenes filled with amorous revelers. Yet *Divinité Chinoise* ("Chinese Divinity") reveals his playful engagement with chinoiserie, the 18th-century European with imagined Chinese aesthetics. Produced posthumously between 1723 and 1735, this bound print likely derives from Watteau's intricate drawings, translated into engraving by skilled printmakers. Watteau's death in 1721 at a...