Detail of the Mechanical Painting with Scene Changes Attributed to Watteau in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 2020

Title: Mechanical painting with scene changes

Artist: Attributed to Antoine Watteau (French, Valenciennes 1684–1721 Nogent-sur-Marne)

Date: 1710

Culture: French

Medium: Oil on paper laid on brass

Dimensions: 22 13/16 × 26 × 3 3/8 in., 23.4 lb. (58 × 66 × 8.6 cm, 10.6 kg)

Classifications: Paper-Paintings, Metalwork-Brass

Credit Line: Fondation Edouard et Maurice Sandoz (FEMS), Pully, Switzerland


This mechanical marvel bears a dedication to the eldest son of King Louis XIV of France, signed with the name of celebrated French painter Antoine Watteau. It belongs to a tradition of artworks equipped with scenes that changed to surprise viewers. The king collected moving paintings of this type, called tableaux changeants. The masquerade ball composition is pierced with six openings. Mounted behind it are six toothed wheels that can rotate via a clockwork mechanism to reveal different scenes of musicians, dancers, and gamblers. Watteau is known for his depictions of figures in aristocratic dress frolicking in lush imaginary settings of seemingly everlasting festivity, a theme known as the fête galante.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/765121