La Game D'Amour by Jean-Antoine Watteau
The engraving is 11.5 inches wide and 9 inches high. I am pretty sure it is an engraving and not a print. I did some googling and it is an engraving of a famous painting by Jean-Antoine Watteau. Below the image is some writing (in French). A part of it I translated (using an on-line translator) to be: "Engraved according to the original painted by Watteau...". It also says it was done by F Chereau (Francois Chereau) and is noted "Cabinet Du Roi" (Engraver to the King).
My grandparents were antique dealers in the NYC area. They would have purchased this from an estate or garage sale in Northern New Jersey in the 1960s or 1970s. I inherited it from them and have had it stored in my home for 20+ years.
Inherited
Maybe
Good afternoon, Patrick,
Thank you for submitting photographs to Mearto for appraisal.
Your hand-colored etching (a type of print) was engraved by Jacques Philippe le Bas after Watteau's painting and published by Francois Chereau, in 1726. I can not find any record of how many prints were made from the plate but yours seems to be in generally good condition for its age, though a first-hand examination would be in order as works on paper sometimes have condition issues that are impossible to identify through photographs.
French school prints are not very popular at the moment but this is nicely decorative and similar examples have sold in the $150-250 range at auction recently.
I hope this information is useful to you. Please let us know if you have additional items that need to be appraised, and thank you for using Mearto.
