Presented by The Michael L. Rosenberg Lecture Series
In the years around 1710, Antoine Watteau established the Fête galante as a highly successful genre in French painting. When the painter died at the age of thirty-seven, the Fête galante’s aesthetic attraction and innovative potential had firmly established market demand and critical appreciation. An entire generation of artists was experimenting to continue Watteau’s project. The role of his only pupil, Jean-Baptiste Pater, in this development has often been reduced to that of a mere follower. Dr. Christoph Vogtherr, Director of the Wallace Collection, will discuss two of Pater’s paintings from the Michael L. Rosenberg Collection as the starting point for a reevaluation of the artist’s contribution to the development of French painting in the 1720s and 1730s.