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| Pilgrimage to Cythera |
- A masterpiece of 18th century French painting, this work by the French Rococo painter Jean-Antoine Watteau, which is also known as The Embarkation for Cythera or Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera, exists in three variants.
- The first, somewhat stilted version is dated 1710 and hangs in the Stadel institute in Frankfurt.
- This Academy version now hangs in the Louvre.
- A third version, now in the Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin, was executed in 1718-19 for a private client Jean de Jullienne (it was later acquired by King Frederick II of Prussia), and is a slight variation upon the Louvre picture.
- The Pilgrimage to Cythera is neither a genre painting nor a landscape painting, but a new type of picture known as La fete galante (a sort of allegory of courtship and falling in love).
- Influenced by the Venetian Giorgione (1477-1510) and the Flemish master Rubens (1577-1640), Watteau was regarded as one of the greatest Rococo artists, and this painting - which began life as an illustration of Florent Carton Dancourt's minor play The Three Cousins - was his finest work and one of the greatest genre paintings of the 18th century.
- Style: Rococo
- Genre: Fête galante
- Media: oil, canva
