But the most famous of signs painted by a great artist is without doubt the one which Watteau, in 1720, shortly before his death, made for the art dealer Gersaint, in three days, “to limber up his stiff old fingers.” It is one of the most beautiful things Watteau ever produced and is now in the possession of the German Kaiser. French critics, however, think that it was executed by a pupil, from the original sketch of the master, which has been found and which shows more “loose qualities,” to use an artist’s term. However that may be, the picture that Frederic the Great purchased through his art agent in Paris is a beauty. A good friend of Watteau’s, a Monsieur de Julienne, the first possessor of the sign, and owner of another painted by Watteau for Gersaint’s art shop, entitled “Vertumnus and Pomona,” was very proud of this new possession, as we might judge from the fact that he asked the engraver Aveline to engrave it with this inscription:—
“Watteau, dans cette enseigne à la fleur de ses ans
Des Maîstres de son art imite la manière;
Leurs caractères différens,
Leurs touches et leur goût composent la matière
De ces esquisses élégans.”
These words refer to a picture gallery in Gersaint’s shop which Watteau carefully reproduces in the sign, but which to our modern eyes is less fascinating than the elegant customers, ladies and gentlemen, and the amusing eagerness and enthusiasm of these aristocratic connoisseurs.
Another sign by Watteau, the loss of which we have to deplore, was the property of a “marchande de modes.” No doubt it tempted many a “Parisienne” to buy rather more of the charming Watteau costumes than were strictly necessary.
A modern French artist who sometimes has been honored with the name “Watteau Montmartrois,” the illustrator Willette, has produced in our days the sign for the famous cabaret, the “Chat Noir” prototype of all cabarets in France and elsewhere. Two other signs by his master-hand, “À l’image de Notre Dame” and “À Bonaparte,” may still be seen in Paris on the Quai Voltaire and on the corner of the Rue Bonaparte and the Rue de l’Abbaie.
Other great French artists have painted signs occasionally: Greuze did the “Enseigne du Huron” for a tobacco merchant—which may remind us of the wooden Indian, guarding similar American shops in the old days; Carle Vernet and his son Horace Vernet; Géricault, the great sportsman, whose career as an artist was cut short by a violent fall from a horse, is the author of the “Cheval blanc,” which once adorned a tavern in the neighborhood of Paris; Gavarni, the great lithographer, painted a sign, “Aux deux Pierrots,” and drew it later on stone; Carolus Duran’s “enseigne brossée vigoureusement sur une plaque légèrement courbée” was first exhibited in the Salon de la Société Nationale before it was placed over the door of a fencing-school; and many others.