Jean-Baptiste Joseph Pater

Donated by the Wildenstein Foundation 

Jean-Baptiste Pater, who like his master Antoine Watteau, the founder of the fête galante tradition, was a native of the northern French town of Valenciennes, learned the rudiments of painting from his compatriot Jean Baptiste Guidé (d. 1711) and acquired some training from his father, the sculptor Antoine Pater (1670–1747). According to early biographers of Watteau, in 1710 Pater accompanied him to Paris. Jean-Baptiste studied with him until personal differences, especially the senior artist’s irascible temperament, led to his dismissal. Pater remained in Paris, working in obscurity, before returning to Valenciennes around 1715. Attempts to paint independently of the artists’ guild there created problems for him, and he returned to the French capital in 1718. There he worked for two intimates and patrons of Watteau, the art dealer, writer and connoisseur Edme François Gersaint and the latter’s future father-in- law, Pierre Sirois. In 1721, Watteau, by then gravely ill with tuberculosis and living at Nogent-sur-Marne, called for Pater, and in his final months they became reconciled and gave Pater further instruction in painting, drawing and composition. It is generally believed that, following Watteau’s death, the pupil completed several of Watteau’s pictures.

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