View through the Trees in the Park of Pierre Crozat

Around 1715 Watteau was living, on and off, in the Paris mansion of Pierre Crozat, a financier so rich and so obsessed with art that he owned thousands of old master drawings, Venetian and Flemish, which the young painter could study at will. This little scene is set in Crozat's own grounds. Elegant figures sit and stand among the trees in the loose, unhurried way that became Watteau's signature, and far off through a gap in the foliage you can just make out a pale building: the family's country house at Montmorency, north of Paris. So the picture is partly a compliment to his host, showing off the patron's park. Watteau gave it the plain title La Perspective, the view down the avenue of trees.