Jean-Baptiste Pater (Valenciennes 1695-1736 Paris)

Like his master Antoine Watteau, Pater often made several different versions of his favourite fête galante compositions by combining and recombining figures within them to ever different effect. As in Watteau's fêtes galantes, the figures in the present Concert Champêtre and Cueillette des Roses wear an imaginative mixture of contemporary clothing and fancy dress, with the women in elegant street clothes and the men in theatrical costume. As well as the humour that characterises the art of Pater, his distinctive, feathery brushwork and unmistakable palette of pearly pinks, silvery greys, milky ivories and acid blues are all evident in these pictures. Stylistically, these paintings can be dated to the mid-1720s.

Although Pater was a prolific draughtsman who used figure studies in many of his pictures, the present pair does not seem to relate specifically to any of his drawings.