Woman Looking at Watteau Drawings in the Louvre

Paul-César Helleu loved his wife, Alice, and he loved the rococo artist Jean-Antoine Watteau, so he combined the two in this stunning print. The elegant Helleu was the toast of fin-de-siècle Paris and made portraits of the most celebrated society women of his day. Nevertheless, his favorite model was always Alice, whom he met when commissioned to paint her portrait when she was fourteen years old. Helleu was a master of drypoint, which he used here to great effect to draw us to Alice, so we may mirror her act of looking.