Jean-Baptiste Pater Valenciennes 1695 - 1736 Paris

Count Vitzhum, Germany;
Ludwig Neumann, London;
Possibly with Wildenstein, New York;
Edward J. Berwind, before 1933 (died 1936), New York, from whom inherited by his niece;
Margaret Behn, New York, until after 1951, but probably by whom sold in;
Anonymous sale: New York, Christie's, 31 May, 1979, lot 100, illustrated on cover, there purchased by
Newhouse Galleries, New York, probably on behalf of
Nicholas M. Acquavella, New York, thence by descent to the present collector.

F. Ingersoll-Smouse, Pater, 1928, p. 38, cat. no. 13, reproduced p. 99, no. 8;
E. Singleton, Old World Masters in New World Collections, 1929, pp. 298-299;
Fine Arts, June 1933, vol. 20, p. 30;
E.S. Sipple, "Art in America: Recent Museum Acquisitions," Burlington Magazine, vol. 71, no. 413, August 1937, p. 94.

ENGRAVED:
Filleoul

This well preserved and beautiful fête galante exemplifies Pater’s elegant style: exquisitely colored and highly finished depictions of an idealized and perfected rustic world.  In this he succeeded his master Watteau, who had created the genre and at whose death Pater took over some of the commissions that were left unfinished.  The audience for such paintings had become international, and Pater was sought after by a wide clientele, achieving great success until his relatively early demise at 40. 

This painting, traditionally given the title of “Amour et Badinage” or “Love and Jesting”, was one of a pendant pair of canvases, together with a picture representing “La Bonne Aventure,” now in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum (inv. 82.8).   Ingersoll-Smouse noted four other versions of the composition: one, with Baron Maurice de Rothschild, Paris; another, formerly in the Neue Palais, Potsdam, apparently given by the German state to the Kaiser (now whereabouts unknown), and two others recorded in sales¹.  To this group must be added another unpublished autograph painting in the de la Mossoinnière collection.²  The Rothschild picture is on copper and much smaller in size, differing from the present picture in a number of ways.  While the figures of the elegant lady and the man seated to the right more or less correspond in both pictures (with changes in costume and other particulars), the present canvas has a wider scope of composition, with many more figures and a much wider landscape.  It seems likely that the Rothschild copper is earlier, as it is more Watteauesque in tenor, and the composition is less fully realized.   

It is not surprising that the first record of the paintings were in a German collection (see Provenance).  Although Pater, along with the other great proponents of the fête galante, had enjoyed the patronage of Frederick the Great, who had owned some 40 of Pater’s paintings, there was not a great vogue in Germany for such paintings in the 18th Century.  However, by the second half of the 19th Century, this had changed, and German collectors had begun to aquire such works.  The pair was also owned by Edward J. Berwind (1848-1936), the Pennsylvania coal magnate, whose mansion at 64^th Street and Fifth Avenue in New York, and grand house, “The Elms” in Newport, both housed collections of French paintings and decorative arts of the 18^th Century.  Many of his finest paintings were given after his death to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, including the Self Portrait with Two Pupils by Adelaide Labille-Guiard, and the Two Sisters by Fragonard.

The present painting will be published by Dr. Christoph Martin Vogtherr in a book on the collections of Frederick the Great, in preparation.

1 See Ingersoll-Smouse op. cit. p. 39; there was a version listed in the Poullain sale in 1780, which was similar to the present work, although perhaps with less figures: "Paysage orné d'architecture.  Sept personnages, assis dans un bosquet, et une servante à genoux qui leur présente des fruits dans un basin.  Un homme, vêtu à  l'espagnole, est appuyé sur la rampe de l'escalier d'un péristyle et les regarde; une petite fille joue avec un chien.  Plus loin, on voit encore un groupe de plusiers figures."   Another picture in the Say sale in 1908 may have been a replica or a copy.

2 We are grateful to Dr. Christoph Martin Vogtherr for providing this information, and also identifying the LACMA canvas as the pendant to the present lot.