Watteau to Degas: French Drawings from the Frits Lugt Collection

The Dutch collector assembled thousands of old master drawings, and the pick of the litter are now on display at the Frick Collection.

Frick Collection, New York

Through Jan. 10, 2010

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Perhaps the most exquisite drawings on display here are by Antoine Watteau, said Ken Johnson in The New York Times. Take his “tenderly erotic” drawing of a young woman reclining in a low-collared gown. “Executed in his signature combination of red, black, and white chalks, and with a touch that is at once loose and exacting,” it summons up a whole world of associations as we wonder what’s in her head. “In his abil­ity to capture human vital­­ity and his empathy for women, Watteau was in Rembrandt’s league.” The delicate, elegant works such as his or those by François Boucher are a “reminder to the digital age of what we lose when we sacrifice the art of drawing by hand to the programs of machinery.”

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