8o The Remedy
Red, black, and white chalk; H: 23.4 cm (9^3 /i6 in.); W:
- 1 cm (i4^5 /8Ín.)
86.GB.59 4
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: (Verso) on mount, in-
scribed Watteau I Etude de femme nue couchée sur un lit. Ser-
vante tenant une seringue 3 crayons I F. Villot in brown ink.
PROVENANCE: Frédéric Villot, Paris (sale, Vignères,
Paris, May 16-18, 1859, lot 184); sale, Hôtel Drouot,
Paris, December 6 , 1875, lot 46; Alexandre Dumas thé
Younger, Paris; Antoine Vollon, Paris; Camille Groult,
Paris; by descent to J. Groult, Paris; by descent to Pierre
Bordeaux-Groult, Paris; John R. Gaines, Lexington,
Kentucky; art market, New York.
EXHIBITIONS: Watteau 1684-1721, National Gallery of
Art, Washington, D.C., Galeries Nationales du Grand
Palais, Paris, and Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin, June
1984-May 1985, no. 88 (catalogue by M. Grasselli and
P. Rosenberg with the assistance of N. Parmantier).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Mathey, "Aspects divers de Watteau
dessinateur dans la collection Groult," L'amour de l'art io
(December 1938), pp. 372-73; H. Adhémar and R.
Huyghe, Watteau: Sa vie, son oeuvre (Paris, 1950), p. 54,
no. 20; K. T. Parker andj. Mathey, Antoine Watteau: Cat-
alogue complet de son oeuvre dessiné (Paris, 1957), vol. 2, p.
366 , no. 865; J. Mathey, Antoine Watteau: Peintures réap
parues, inconnues ou négligées par les historiens identification
par les dessins, chronologie (Paris, 1959), pp. 49, 79; M.
Cormack, The Drawings of Watteau (London, 1970), pi.
114; D. Posner, "Watteau's Reclining Nude and the 'Rem-
edy' Theme," Art Bulletin 54, no. 4 (December 1972),
pp. 385-88; idem, A Lady at Her Toilet (London, 1973),
PP- 35 ~36, 99; O. T. Banks, Watteau and the North (New
York, 1977), p. 185; D. Posner, Antoine Watteau (London,
1984), pp. 105-6; M. Roland Michel, Watteau: An Artist
of the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1984), p. 221.
THIS UNUSUALLY COMPLETE DRAWING BY WATTEAU
was made in preparation for his painting now in the Nor-
ton Simon Museum, Pasadena. The latter has been cut
down substantially, so that the principal figure is severed
just below her knees and the panel is reduced in height by
approximately one third. The drawing contains not only
the luscious nude lying provocatively in the foreground
but a nurse who appears at the right with a clyster in order
to administer an enema. This figure either was excluded
by Watteau from the final painting or was in the section
that was removed. The erotic overtones of the depicted
action have been pointed out by Posner (1972, 1973,
1984). The nude and bed were executed by Watteau with
consummate mastery, while the nurse seems to have
given him greater difficulty. He drew her head twice over
an earlier and perhaps unrelated head study. She also ap-
pears on another sheet in the Louvre (inv. 33381) that
contains two sketches of heads made in connection with
the second version of the Embarkation for Cythera (Berlin,
Schloss Charlottenburg). The Museum's drawing prob-
ably dates from circa 1717.190 FRENCH SCHOOL • WATTEAU