Jean-Antoine Watteau (French 1684-1721)

Artist: After Jean-Antoine Watteau (French 1684-1721).
Title: L’Indifférent.
Medium: Oil on wooden panel.
Image Size: Height 26 cm x Width 17.8 cm.
Framed Size: Height 67 cm x Width 58 cm x Depth 7 cm.
Condition: The work is in an overall good condition, with some minor losses. Housed within an impressive double antique gilt frame and glazed with anti-reflective invisible glass ArtGlass AR70.

About: This painting is after the original which is held in the Louvre, Paris. This painting is also known as “The Casual Lover.” Generous folds of silk give the figure of a carefree young man a delightful shimmer appropriate to his pose, as he is about to execute a dance step. This is a trait of Watteau, as he was always drawn to the inaugural moment of an action.

Provenance: The Estate of the late David Fyfe-Jamieson (1954-2020) who was educated at Radley College, Oxfordshire, where he was a celebrated cricketer. With his great friend Henry Wyndham, later chair of Sotheby’s in London, he enrolled at the Sorbonne to learn French. Neither finished the course, spending more time eating out and watching Marx Brothers films. After a short spell in Australia, David moved to South Africa where he worked for the Wildenstein’s. He eventually returned to London, where he joined the Old Master Paintings Department of Sotheby’s. He then worked for Artemis Fine Art, a leading London-based Old Master Art Consultancy. Eventually, he set up and ran his own gallery in Dover Street, London, subsequently closing it in 2000. He went on to reinvent himself as a bespoke cabinet maker in Shropshire, where he lived until he died in 2020.