Les Plaisirs du bal

c. 1715–17

Oil on canvas, 20 3/4 × 25 3/4 in. Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

The party moves under a built loggia that opens straight onto a park, so architecture and garden become one stage set.

Look at

An arch at left and striped columns at right frame a view of trees, a fountain and sky; the dance floor is a flat grid pointing into it.
Two small dancers hold the centre on an empty patch of floor while the crowd packs both sides.
Colour comes in small sharp notes — a gold dress, a red cap, a blue coat — against grey-green stone.

Technical study found Watteau first planned the scene entirely indoors, then opened the back wall to the landscape.
Came to Dulwich in the Bourgeois Bequest of 1811; conserved in 2020.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain