Claude Gillot

Watermark: none.
A mark of Gillot's increasing sophistication as an artist is a series of vertical format scenes depicting the Four Ages of a Satyr. The present sheet is devoted to Childhood, while others chronicled satyrs engaging in behavior typical of Adolescence, Maturity, and Old Age. All four were in the Paignon-Dijonval collection but only the Morgan's drawing is extant, the rest of the series is known through engravings, posthumously executed in reverse, by Francois Joullain. Infrared examination reveals that Gillot produced the drawing on a sheet of paper already used for a letter, though the content of the missive is difficult to distinguish.
Executed in a richly painterly rosaille technique achieved with a mixture of iron oxide/red chalk and lead white, Childhood depicts young satyrs as they learn to walk and play under the guidance of a nymph. She uses a doll to distract an eager child with a whirligig, while a child in a walker--pushed and pulled by his playmates--reaches his arm out for the toy. A child at lower right reclines against his drum while his companion rides a hobby horse.