Fête Champêtre

Pater was born in Valenciennes, as was his older comtemporary Watteau. He went to Paris as a youth and was for a short time his compatriot's student, probably in 1713. Pater worked again with Watteau for a short time during the last year of the older artist's life (1721), a period Pater said later was the most profitable of his career. With Lancret he was the most fitted of Watteau's pupils.

Pater's total oeuvre - well over 600 pictures - consists almost entirely of fétes champêtres, literally "country festivals": elegant figures in a landscape, often paired off in amorous couples. Many are inspired by Watteau, and like Watteau, Pater drew upon drawings compiled in his sketchbooks fror figures; hence they reappear throughout his work in varying combinations. Clear, pale colors and a nervous line are among his distinctive traits.

In Pater's studio at his death in 1736 were left some 50 paintings, of which 27 were catalogued as "unfinished". It can be assumed but not proven that the Oberlin picture is one of these. In degree of finish it is very close to the great Pater at the National Gallery, Washington (On the Terrace, no. 1357).

Frederick the great was a major collector of Pater's work, as was Richard, fourth Marquess of Hertford and his son, Sir Richard Wallace; thus there are rich holdings of Pater both in Berlin and in the Wallace Collection, London. The Oberlin painting was sold at auction in Paris in June 1920 (as Assemblée dans un Parc) to M. Gutzwiller, Paris, where it remained at least until 1928, when the Pater catalog raisonné was published.