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Charlotte Mason Picture Study Aid Antoine Watteau

The Embarkation for Cythera (or Pilgrimage to Cythera)

1717
oil on canvas
129 x 194 cm
Louvre

KEY TOPICS:

• The scene takes place on the island of Cythera, which is located in the Aegean Sea. This is
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also supposedly the island where Venus, the goddess of love, was born.
• This was the piece that Watteau used for entrance to the French Royal Academy of Painting

and Sculpture. The judges were very impressed by it, but were unsure of which genre in
which to categorize it, so they created a new category – the fête galante – just for this piece.
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• A second painting very similar to this one currently hangs in the Charlottenburg Palace in

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Berlin.
• Mountains can be seen in the distance and the foreground contains figures, some with

walking sticks, exiting a gondola (seen in the lower left) as they make their way on to the
island and to the statue of Venus on the right. Winged putti (or winged babies – sometimes
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called cherubs) fly into the sky on the left side of the piece. Behind the figures on the right

are tall trees reaching to the top of the picture plane.
• This piece was inspired by Dancrout’s play, Les trois Cousines (The Three Cousins) and the

line, “Venez à l’île de Cythère / En pèlerinage avec nous / Jeune fille n’en revient guère / Ou

9 (Zeri)
10 (Roberts)
11 (Kleiner)

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