Mezzetin

A wistful Mezzetin — the lovelorn clown of the commedia dell’arte — sits on a stone bench playing his guitar beneath a statue of a nymph. Antoine Watteau painted this tender figure in the last years of his short life, at once a comic entertainer and a portrait of longing. The muted greens and silvery pinks, the theatrical costume and the melancholy in the performer’s eyes give the picture the bittersweet air that made Watteau the poet of the fête galante.