Actors of the Comédie-Française,^{[note 1]} also traditionally known as The Coquettes (Les Coquettes; from Coquettes qui pour voir), is an oil on panel painting in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, by the French Rococo artist Antoine Watteau (1684–1721). Variously dated within the 1710s by scholars, the painting forms a compact half-length composition that combines portraiture and genre painting, notably influenced by Venetian school, the Le Nain brothers, and Watteau's master Claude Gillot; one of the rarest cases in Watteau's body of work, it shows five figures — two women, two men, and a black boy — amid a darkened background, in contrary to landscapes that are usually found in Watteau's fêtes galantes.

For three centuries, there were numerous attempts to identify the subject and the characters represented by Watteau; various authors thought the painting to be either a theatrical scene featuring commedia dell'arte masks, or a group portrait of Watteau's contemporaries. Beginning from the late 20th century, Russian and Western sources accept a theory developed within the Hermitage Museum that holds the painting to be a group portrait of the Comédie-Française players who performed in the playwright Florent Carton Dancourt's play The Three Cousins. Given a variety of available interpretations, the painting has been known under a number of various titles; its traditional naming is derived from anonymous verses, with which the painting was published as an etching in the 1730s.

By the mid-18th century, Actors of the Comédie-Française belonged to Louis Antoine Crozat, Baron de Thiers [fr], a nephew of the Parisian merchant and art collector Pierre Crozat; as part of the Crozat collection, the painting was acquired in 1772 for Empress Catherine II of Russia. Since then the painting was among Russian imperial collections in the Hermitage and, later, in the Gatchina Palace, before entering the Hermitage again in the 1920s; as part of the museum's permanent exhibition, it remains on display in the Winter Palace.

Actors of the Comédie-Française is an oil painting on a pearwood panel that measures approximately 20 by 25 cm.^[3][4] The painting is a compact half-length composition that shows five figures standing around a high wooden balustrade; most of the figures can be related to extant drawings, either directly or through comparable studies in Watteau's body of work. It has been noted by scholars that the half-length representation of Watteau's painting was influenced by Venetian painting;^[5] influences from French school such as the Le Nain brothers^[6] and Watteau's master Claude Gillot^[7] are also cited.

The rightmost figure is an outwardly old man dressed in a skullcap; he stands upon a cane in the left hand, while holding a mushroom hat in the right hand. The figure is generally associated with an early full-length sanguine study (PM 64; RP 75), published as an etching engraved by Jean Audran (FDC 157); the earlier version of the subject was introduced by Watteau in Marriage Contract and Country Dancing (now in the Prado, Madrid)^[8] and L'Accordee du Village (now in Sir John Soane's Museum, London).^[9] It has been noted, however, that the study is probably a reduced version of a larger, more vibrant study drawn from life, similar to other studies such as the ones located in the British Museum, London (PM 84; RP 130), and in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem (PM 53; RP 135), respectively. Given the rendering of the hand holding the cane and the quality of the man's face, it has been suggested that Watteau relied on additional drawings for the painting.^[10]

By the balustrade's other side, a young girl is shown in a lightly colored, striped dress with ruff, standing behind a black boy servant in green-striped clothes; over the girl's shoulder, a head of a young man, dressed as Mezzetino, appears in a large motley beret. The girl and the boy's figures are usually related to a Louvre sheet of eight head studies, with the boy's head directly adopted into the Hermitage painting; the girl's figure is also thought to be related to the Louvre drawing, exactly a girl's head notably used in a version of The Embarkation for Cythera located in the Charlottenburg Palace.^[11] Young people of color were a recurrent theme in Watteau's paintings and drawings, possibly influenced by works of Paolo Veronese; these are also present in Les Charmes de la vie (Wallace Collection, London), La Conversation (Toledo Museum of Art), and Les Plaisirs du Bal (Dulwich Gallery, London). The head of the young man has no directly related drawings, but is notably present, with slight differences, in The Italian Comedians now in the Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the figure has also been associated by Nemilova with a head on a sheet of studies located in a private collection in New York City (PM 746; RP 456) and, to a lesser success, with a figure from a sheet now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (PM 665; RP 475),^[12] while Yuri Zolotov [ru] thought the head to be related with Il Capitano's figure present in the Louvre-owned Pierrot.^[13]

Opposite to the old man, the leftmost figure is a young woman turned to the right in profile, wearing Polish-styled red dress and white chipper, leaning on the balustrade and holding a black mask in the right hand; from the X-ray analysis, it has been found that she was to be bareheaded, wearing a different attire, and had to have her mask placed on the balustrade rather than holding it.^[14] Similarly to the old man's figure, the woman's figure has been related to an early, small, full-length study (RP 44) of a similarly dressed yet differently posed woman, that has been adopted into a more detailed drawing, later used in The Polish Woman, traditionally but not definitively attributed to Watteau (now in the National Museum, Warsaw). Various studies of women's hands holding masks have been related to the painting, with a study in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (PM 828; RP 417), regarded as the closest. There is also a now untraced sanguine and black chalk study of the woman and the boy (PM 541; RP R591) that closely corresponds, albeit in reverse, with the painting; Parker and Mathey, who attributed the drawing to Watteau, considered it to be a preliminary study,^[15] and so did Nemilova and, during the 1984–1985 exhibition, Rosenberg; however, Eidelberg rejected that relation, as well as the sheet's authenticity, pointing out that the drawing is more corresponding to the etching rather than to the painting;^[16] in the 1996 catalogue raisonné, Rosenberg and Louis-Antoine Prat also list the sheet as rejected.^{[17][citation needed]}

The painting is generally in good condition, despite losses and restorations underwent in the past.^[18] Damages found via visual observations include a restored crack along the old man's cloak, to the right; there are cracks in shaded areas, more importantly along the lower edge and around the girl's head; a loss has been painted in above the girl's left shoulder.^[19] X-ray analysis of the painting, performed by Soviet scholars in the 1970s, has also revealed alterations made to the leftmost figure during the painting's production: the woman was to be bare-headed rather than wearing the bonnet, and was to wear a free-flowing costume with horizontal stripes, different from a Polish-styled one found in the final painting; her hand didn't hold the mask, but lay on the banister.^[20]

Until the middle of the 20th century, sources and studies on Watteau variously defined the work's subject. In notes to Pellegrino Antonio Orlandi's Abecedario pittorico, Pierre-Jean Mariette referred to the work as Coquettes qui pour voir galans au rendez vous (transl. "Coquettish women, who to meet gallant men go around..."), after the first verses of quatrains accompanying Thomassin's engraving for the Recueil Jullienne; Mariette thought the panel depicts "people in disguise for a ball, among whom is one dressed as an old man."^[21] François-Bernard Lépicié refers to the composition as Retour de Bal in a 1741 obituary of Henri Simon Thomassin [fr], believing the figures to be returning from a ball;^{[22]: 569 [23]} in contrary, Catalogue Crozat of 1755 and Dezallier d'Argenville fils described it as a depiction of masked figures preparing for a ball.^[24][25]

Later sources, more prominently in France and Russia, similarly had various definitions on the subject: Johann Ernst von Munnich [ru] refers to the work as Personnages en masques (transl. "Characters in Masks") in the manuscript catalogue of the Hermitage collection;^[26] the Hermitage's 1797 catalogue features the title The Mascarade,^[27] whereas the 1859 inventory registry features only the work's description—"two women, talking with two men, and a negro beside them".^[28][29] In his writings, Pierre Hédouin [fr] referred to the work as Le Rendez-vous du bal masqué,^[30] before Edmond de Goncourt's Catalogue raisonné... introduced the Mariette-mentioned title into common use.^[31]

In an 1896 article published in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, the French author Gaston Schéfer was the first to consider The Coquettes to be based on portrait drawings rather than being a theatrical scene. Schéfer suggested from an inscription under Boucher's etching after the Berlin drawing, found in a copy of Figures des differents caracteres held by the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, that the old man on the right of the painting was modelled after Pierre-Maurice Haranger, a canon of the Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois who was a close friend of Watteau; the lady in red was thought by Schéfer to be the Comédie-Française actress Charlotte Desmares,^{[note 2]} based on comparison of the composition with Lepicié's etching of her portrait by Charles-Antoine Coypel.^{[lower-alpha 1]} Later in the early 1900s, playwright Virgile Josz presumed the painting to be a depiction of commedia dell'arte masks, with the old man as Pantalone, the women as Rosaura and Isabella, and the young man as Scapino;^[35] in later years, these points were adopted by a number of scholars^{[note 3]} Josz's contemporary Louis de Fourcaud considered figures to be a family group dressed for an elegant masquerade."^[41][42]

In a 1950 monograph on Watteau, Hélène Adhémar identified the lady in red as Charlotte Desmares, similarly to Schéfer;^[43] Adhémar's point was furthered in Karl Parker and Jacques Mathey's 1957–1958 catalogue of Watteau drawings; they concluded that the old man could be another Comédie-Française player, Pierre Le Noir.^{[note 4]} In the Soviet Union, the Hermitage staff member Inna Nemilova supported these points, and also concluded the young man to be Philippe Poisson.^[46][47] In addition, Nemilova pointed out Desmares could be possibly depicted by Watteau in both versions of The Embarkation for Cythera, and also other canvas^{[note 5]} and various drawings.^[48]

In an article on the Hermitage's 1922–1925 exhibition of French paintings, published in the March 1928 issue of Gazette des Beaux-Arts, the Russian scholar Sergei Ersnt [ru] reported that according to an inscription found on the panel's verso, The Coquettes belonged to the painter Nicolas Bailly [fr]^{[note 6]} (1659–1736), a curator of the royal collections who authored a 1709–1710 inventory of the paintings in possession of King Louis XIV;^[50] in 1984, Rosenberg said that he wasn't surprised about Ernst's report, given Bailly's relations within artistic circles.^{[note 7]} The label has been deciphered as "N Bailly [prove]nant <...> de lonay aux gallery;" it has been noted that de Lonay was an expert mentioned by the Parisian merchant and art collector Pierre Crozat — once a patron of Watteau — in his last will and testament;^[51] in the early 1900s, Virgile Josz speculated that Crozat could once own the painting.^[52]

By the mid-18th century, The Coquettes came into possession of Louis Antoine Crozat, Baron de Thiers [fr], Pierre Crozat's nephew; it was present in the 1755 catalogue of Crozat de Thiers' collection,^[24] and later in the 1771 inventory compiled by François Tronchin [fr] upon the collector's death.^[53] As part of the Crozat collection, The Coquettes was acquired for the Hermitage, then recently established by Empress Catherine the Great in Saint Petersburg.^[54] At some point in the mid-19th century, the painting was taken to the Gatchina Palace; it was present in the Oval Chamber, a personal room of Tsar Paul I in the palace's ground floor, where it was photographed in the early 1910s.^[55] In 1920, The Coquettes was restored to the Hermitage; as part of the museum's contemporary exhibition, the painting is on display in room 284, formerly the second room of military pictures in the Winter Palace.^[56][57]

In the early 1730s, Actors of the Comédie-Française was published as an etching in reverse by Henri Simon Thomassin [fr].^[21] The print was notably mentioned in François-Bernard Lépicié's obituary notice for Thomassin that appeared in the March 1741 issue of Mercure de France, and later by Pierre-Jean Mariette in Notes manuscrites; in subsequent years, it served as a source to a number of pastiches.

Thomassin's etching was anonymously reproduced as a miniature print, captioned L'Amour, sous un déguisment.... A Favourite Sultana (also called Preparation for the Masquerade), an oval stipple print depicting the turbaned woman at the right of Thomassin's engraving, was produced in London in 1785 by Italian-born artist Francesco Bartolozzi, and has the misleading declaration "Watteau pinxt."^[84] Another engraving of the composition, called La Comédie italienne, was produced by Félix-Jean Gauchard after Thomassin's print, to accompany the entry on Watteau published in Charles Blanc's series Histoire des peintres des toutes les écoles. École français in 1862-63.^[85][86]

Mascarade (also spelled Masquerade), a mezzotint by French-born English printmaker John Simon, was mentioned by Charles Le Blanc^[87] and John Chaloner Smith^[88][89] in their respective studies, and was presumed to be a repetition of Thomassin's print by some authors (notably including Dacier and Vuaflart^[90]), given similarity in the number of characters.