Painting owned by the first Prime Minister of Great Britain at risk of export
A temporary export bar has been placed on Le Rêve de L’Artiste by Jean-Antoine Watteau
- The painting, which was previously hung in Downing Street, is valued at over £6 million
- Export bar is to allow time for a UK gallery or institution to acquire the painting
A temporary export bar has been placed on Le Rêve de L’Artiste, a painting by influential 18th century French artist Jean-Antoine Watteau.
The work, valued at £6,075,000 (plus VAT of £215,020), is at risk of leaving the UK unless a domestic buyer can be found to save the work for the nation.
Watteau was one of the most original and influential French painters of his era. He was a leading figure in the development of the Rococo style and inventor of a type of painting known as the Fête Galante, often small cabinet pictures, exploring the psychology of love, usually within a landscape setting.
His popularity in Britain amongst his contemporaries is evidenced through Le Rêve de L’Artiste being bought in 1736 by the first Prime Minister of Great Britain, Sir Robert Walpole. The painting was hung in Lady Walpole’s dressing room in 10 Downing Street for the remaining years of his administration.
Le Rêve de L’Artiste is an ambitious and complex picture featuring two dozen characters in a surreal, structured environment depicting some of the artist’s own dreams. The painting is unlike much of Watteau’s other work which largely presents natural landscapes as idyllic and untamed.
Arts Minister Sir Chris Bryant said:
This painting was once owned by our first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, and was hanging for several years in 10 Downing Street, so Watteau’s Le Rêve de L’Artiste has a fascinating connection to British History, offering us insights into the tastes and development of art in Britain in the 18th century. It portrays the artist’s dream, but perhaps its surreal fantasia inspired political dreams as well. Either way, it is an important and unusual work by a genius.
I hope a UK buyer has the opportunity to purchase this work so it can continue to be studied and enjoyed by the public.”
The Minister’s decision follows the advice of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest. The RCEWA Committee found that the painting met the third Waverley criterion for its outstanding significance to the study of the collections in which this picture was included as well as the early and highly unusual depiction of dream imagery.
Committee Member Mark Hallett said:
This beautiful, enigmatic painting showcases Watteau’s extraordinary originality, and provides us with one of Western art’s earliest and most profound representations of the process of artistic creativity. It gives us a fascinating insight not only into Watteau’s thinking as a painter, but into wider eighteenth-century concepts of inspiration and imagination. As such, Le Rêve de l’Artiste has a special, almost unique status in the artist’s output. This is a work that cries out for further research, interpretation and appreciation, and that fully deserves being retained for the nation.
The decision on the export licence application for the painting will be deferred for a period ending on 29 November 2024 inclusive. At the end of the first deferral period owners will have a consideration period of 15 Business Days to consider any offer(s) to purchase the painting at the recommended price of £6,075,000 (plus VAT of £215,020). The second deferral period will commence following the signing of an Option Agreement and will last for six months.
Notes to editors
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Organisations or individuals interested in purchasing the painting should contact the RCEWA on 02072680534 or rcewa@artscouncil.org.uk .
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Details of the object are as follows: Antoine Watteau (Valenciennes 1684–1721 Nogent-sur-Marne), The Dream of the Artist, about 1710. Oil on canvas, 95.5 x 121 cm.
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Provenance: Jacques Langlois (1681–1722), painter and dealer on the Pont Notre Dame, Paris; the inventory following his death on the 16th December 1722, included ‘Le Reve, du sieur Watteau, b.d.[bordure dorée]…120 l. [livres]’. Painting arrived in London, c. 17231; Sir Robert Walpole M.P., 1st Earl of Orford, Prime Minister of England (1676–1745). By 1736, as it is listed in that year in Walpole’s manuscript, A Catalogue of the Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole’s Collection of Pictures, the painting is listed as hanging in Lady Walpole’s dressing room at 10 Downing Street, and described thus: ‘Watteau – A dream of Watteau’s, Himself asleep by a rock; Several Dancers & Grotesque figures in the Clouds – 2’ 1” - 2’ 7 ¼ ”’ (25 x 31 ¼ in). Sold Cock’s auction room, known as Messrs Cock & Langford, in the Great Piazza of Covent Garden, the Walpole sale, 28 April 1748, second day, lot 62, sold for £ 6.10/-, bought by; James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton (1702–1768), on whose death, by inheritance to; Susan Elizabeth, Dowager Countess of Morton (1793-1849), widow of the 16th Earl; Sold her sale, Christie’s, 27th April 1850, lot 88, (The Painter’s Dream – a very elegant design), sold for £ 27.6/- to ‘Anthony’. (3rd most expensive painting in sale); James Goding Esq. (d. 1857); his sale, Christie’s, 21st February 1857, lot 503, (The Painter’s Dream- one of eight ‘Watteau’ in the Goding collection), sold for £ 36 to ‘Webb’, bought on behalf of; John Ashley Cooper (1808–1867), 4th son of 6th Earl of Shaftesbury, of 17 Upper Brook Street, Mayfair, London, on whose death, by inheritance to his wife; Julia Ashley, née Conyers (c.1818–1907); Her sale, Christie’s, 25th June 1904, lot 51, sold for £ 68.5/- to; Martin Colnaghi (1821–1908); subsequently sold for FF10,000 to; Renee Gimpel (1881–1945) and Nathan Wildenstein (1851 – 1934), who then sold it for FF150,000 to; David David-Weill (1871–1952), c. 1914, New York; Sold Sotheby’s, 10th June 1959, lot 41, bought for £ 1,200 by ‘Wallraf’ on behalf of Wildenstein & Co., London, thence sold in 1963 through the dealer Dudley Tooth to; Ivo Forde Esq (1949–2023); An English private collector, acquired 1993; Private collection.
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The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest is an independent body, serviced by Arts Council England (ACE), which advises the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on whether a cultural object, intended for export, is of national importance under specified criteria.