Die italienische Komödie

c. 1716–17

Oil on canvas, 15 1/4 × 19 1/4 in. Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

The only night scene Watteau painted: a troupe lit by one torch, so light does the work that colour does elsewhere.

Look at

A single flame right of centre lights every face from one side; a lantern at far left and the moon at upper right are the only other lights.
The players stand in a shallow row across the lower part; above them the top third of the canvas is near-black foliage.
The palette has two temperatures: warm ochre and cream in the lit costumes, cold blue-black around them.

Cochin's engravings of 1734 supplied the title and the pairing with a French Comedy; Frederick the Great owned both at Sanssouci before 1769, and they reached the Berlin gallery in 1829.
Unusually well preserved for a Watteau, according to the Gemäldegalerie.