Standing Savoyarde with a Marmot Box
ca. 1715
Medium
Red and black chalk
Dimensions
12 5/16 x 8 in. (31.2 x 20.3 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of Therese Kuhn Straus, in memory of her husband, Herbert N. Straus, 1978
Accession Number
1978.12.1
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the early 18th century, Watteau (16841721), a pioneering French Rococo artist, the charm of everyday performers in his exquisite drawings. *Standing Savoyarde with aot Box* (ca. 1715) depicts a poised woman from the Savoy region of France and Italy—known as a Savoyarde—who entertained crowds as a street musician or animal trainer. Clutching her hurdy-gurdy and a box for her performing marmot (a type of groundhog), she embodies the theatrical itinerants Watteau adored, blending realism with poetic grace. Rendered in red and black chalk on paper (31.2 x 20.3 cm), this sheet showcases Watteau...
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...