When you look up the word “Rococo,” it’s very likely one of Jean Antoine-Watteau’s pieces will be on display, either online or in person.  

He was the sugary movement’s foremost artist and draftsman. Of all of them, this piece is Watteau’s earliest known work.

Watteau specialized in fete galantes, French for “courtship party.”  Nobles would be depicted as they are at a social function, but instead of the ornate halls of Versailles, they would be dancing and cavorting under trees and over riverbanks.  However, The County Dance is an example of the original predecessor to the fete galantes, the fete champetre, or “rural festival.” Watteau wanted to throw a shoutout to previous Flemish artists that also depicted rural scenes such as Peter Paul Rubens and David Teniers, so his figures here are lower on the social ladder than in later works.  However, the peasants here, instead of being rowdy and boisterous, have the careful composure of wealthy nobles.  It’s like you’re looking at the artistic equivalent of a gentrified neighborhood!

Before the Indianapolis Museum of Art got its hands on the Watteau piece, it belonged to a certain Ellnora Krannert, wife of Herman C. Krannert.  The couple were co-founders of the Inland Container Corporation, one of the largest corrugated shipping container manufacturers on Earth.  What that basically means is this: they’re a big part of the reason why your products from Amazon come to you in one piece.  In 1984, they underwent a merger and were reborn as Temple-Inland, Co. and in 1992, accounted for eight percent of U.S. production in their respective market.  They were both heads of a foundation that funded creative departments in Indiana University, Purdue University, the University of Illinois, and Berry College.  She died on July 8th, 1974.  Betcha she had the painting shipped to the museum in one of her company’s boxes.