November and December (part of a set illustrating the months of the year)
second quarter 18th century
Medium
Oil on panel; wood frame, painted yellow and gilded
Dimensions
Overall: 116 × 15 1/2 in. (294.6 × 39.4 cm)
Classification
Woodwork|Paintings|Paintings-Decorative
Culture
French
Department
European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1922
Accession Number
22.225.5
Tags
Art Historical Context
Antoine Watteau’s *November and December* forms part of an elegant series depicting the months of the year, created in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. As a leading figure of the French Rococo, Watteau specialized in light-filled, poetic scenes that blended everyday activities with graceful ornament. Here, figures engaged in seasonal labors—accompanied by horses and garlands—animate the tall, narrow panel, transforming practical rural work into a refined visual calendar suited to an aristocratic interior. Painted in oil on a slender wooden support and set within a gilded yellow f...
About the Artist
Antoine Watteau · 1684–1721
Jean-Antoine Watteau, born in 1684 in Valenciennes to a modest family—his father a roofer named Jean-Philippe Watteau—was the second of four sons who displayed an early passion for art. After initial apprenticeship under local painter Jacques-Albert Gérin, he moved to Paris around 1702, working in workshops copying Flemish and Dutch genre scenes. By 1705, he entered the studio of Claude Gillot, ab...