3-016-368 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

The Rest, 1709. The soldiers are resting around two large trees. In this area in the middle of a provisional camp, Watteau locates two finely dressed women, one of whom lifts up her skrits in a flirtatious manner so as not to dirty the bottom of her dress in the mud. The two women, who seem remote from the action around them, seem to be talking to each other, watched by a pair of soldiers, one of them wounded in the head and arm. Watteau added two further figures, again not connected with the military world, in the form of a young mother and her son who also take advantage of the shade of the large trees to rest.