Portrait of Claude-Henri Watelet - Greuze

1763 Salon Booklet:

By Mr Greuze, Approved.
110. […]
121. Portrait of Mr Watelet, Receiver General of Finances.
Painting measuring 4 feet 6 inches high by 3 feet 6 inches wide.

Diderot:

He is dull; he looks foggy; he is sullen. It is the man, turn the canvas around. " (Bouquins, p. 386)

Mathon de La Cour, 1763, letter III, p. 62, speaking of the portraits exhibited by Greuze:

The public deeply regretted that of Mr. Wattelet, which was not exhibited.

Author of L'Art de peindre (The Art of Painting, 1760), a poem in four cantos strongly criticised by Diderot in his review for the Correspondance littéraire, the Receiver-General of Finances Claude-Henri Watelet, born in 1718, was a member of the Académie Française and considered himself an art lover. He frequented philosophers in the salons of Mme Geoffrin and Baron d'Holbach; he supported the subscription organised by Voltaire for Corneille's works to benefit the playwright's niece; Greuze painted his portrait, which was exhibited in the same Salon of 1765 as the painting by Roslin, his rival, whom Watelet favoured over Greuze... Watelet is depicted here writing about his art of painting in front of a reduction of the Medici Venus, whose proportions he is studying with a compass.