Designer and engraver, Claude Gillot (Langres, 1673 - Paris, 1722) owes a large part of his reputation to the fantasy of his drawings and the freedom of his engravings, earning him the reputation of an undisciplined artist. His work as a vignettist, abundant and varied, appreciated by private circles and the Parisian bourgeoisie, testifies, at the end of the Grand Siècle, to the emergence of a first rococo, rich in invention, poetry and strangeness. At a distance from the official art of Versailles, his art is that of Italian comedy, fable and theater, then in full evolution.
The work seeks to show how drawing, in its technical diversity, was the artist's preferred means of expression, while his painted work is rare, limited to less than ten canvases. He also reports the great profusion of his production between bacchanalia and scenes of witchcraft, opera sets, costumes and actors' figures, festivals and rustic pleasures...
Finally, his posterity is evoked by the first drawings of the young Watteau who is trained in his workshop. This prestigious student ensured that Gillot never fell into oblivion and opened the way to the success of the Regency galant parties.

Exhibition Claude Gillot, from November 9, 2023 to February 26, 2024, at the Louvre Museum, Sully Wing, Salle de l'Horloge.

French

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