An elegant company in a park

This elegant fête galante displays both Pater's dependence on Watteau's example and the personal qualities he brought to his art. Pater's figures are often almost identical to Watteau's, their arrangement perhaps adjusted. And yet there is something lighter and more decorative in Pater's paintings than in his master's prototypes. His brushwork is looser and more liquid, his palette of pearly pinks, silver greys, and acid blues is cooler, brighter and less autumnal than Watteau's. This altered technique brings with it a lightening of mood and a reduction in the psychological complexity that is to be found in Watteau's paintings. Pater's paintings are not generally based on a close study of nature and instead aim to create a generalised, ornamental simulacrum of reality whose principal function is decorative. Enlivened by charming, colourfully attired figures that lack corporeal reality, Pater's landscapes resemble no known typography; they represent an idyllic arcadia, in which each element is included for its picturesque appeal.

The picture is one of a group of more than two dozen sketchy, loosely executed paintings by Pater that have often been considered preparatory or unfinished canvases. (Among the comparable works by Pater, two can be found in the National Gallery of Art, Washington and the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College; see A. Wintermute, 'Watteau, Ruins, and the Pastoral Landscape in French Painting, 1700-1750' in the exhibition catalogue, The Splendor of Ruins in French Landscape Painting 1630-1800, ed. S. Borys, Oberlin, 2005, pp. 24-6.) It is telling that no comparable group of sketchily painted works by Watteau, Lancret or any of the other painters of the fête galante is known. While it is possible that these paintings by Pater were left unfinished at the time of the artist's death, they do not all appear to date from one time or necessarily from late in his career. Furthermore, the significant number that has survived and the fact that they have been admired and collected since the eighteenth century, suggests that the artist and his collectors regarded them as finished works, simply executed in an exceptionally free manner and intended to appeal to the developing taste among sophisticated collectors for ébauches, or sketches.