Antoine Watteau was considered the greatest French painter of the early 1700's and one of the key figures of Rococo art.

He was born in Valenciennes, which had passed to France from the Spanish Netherlands six years before his birth, and so he was regarded by contemporaries as a Flemish painter. Antoine had strong links of the Flanders in his art, but also a sophistication that was definitely French.

Watteau moved to Paris in 1702 and worked with Gillot, who stimulated his interest in theatrical costumes and scenes from daily life. He soon joined Claude Audran, Keeper of the Luxembourg Palace, and had access to Peter Paul Rubens's Médicis paintings, which were of an enormous influence on him. Watteau's paintings of exquisitely dressed young people idling away their time in a dreamy, romantic, setting goes far back in time but Watteau was the first painter to make the theme his own.

In 1717 he entered a piece to the Academy and the difficulty of fitting him into recognized categories was received as a "peintre de fêtes galantes", a title created expressly for him. Watteau was a highly independent artist, who did not submit to the will of patrons or officialdom. He created his own "Parisian" outlook that endured until the Neoclassicism of David. Watteau's world is a highly artificial one but there is a feeling reflecting the knowledge that all the pleasures of the flesh are transient.

Watteau was careless in his technique and many of his paintings are in a poor state of preservation. His true genius shows in his numerous drawings, many of them studies from the life. He saved his drawings into large bound volumes and used these books as a reference source for his paintings.

Antoine Watteau was notorious for his irritable, restless temperament but in spite of this, he had many loyal friends and supporters who recognized his genius. It is in his colors that Antoine had the most profound influence. His method of juxtaposing flecks of color on the canvas was carried further by Eugène Delacroix and later reduced to a science by Georges Seurat.

Watteau also had a nephew and a great-nephew who worked more-or-less in his manner, Louis-Joseph Watteau and François-Louis-Joseph Watteau.

Antoine Watteau died of tuberculosis at the early age of 37.