Jean Baptiste Joseph Pater

1695 – 1736

French painter, the only pupil of Watteau (a fellow native of Valenciennes), with whom he had a somewhat touchy relationship. An unlikely legend has it that Watteau dismissed him from his studio (c. 1713) because he was disturbed by the threat offered by his progress to his own pre-eminence; whatever the reason for their differences, they were reconciled soon before Watteau's death. Like Watteau's other imitator, Lancret, Pater repeated the master's type of 'fêtes galantes' in a fairly stereotyped fashion. He showed more originality in scenes of military life and groups of bathers (in which he gave freer rein to the suggestiveness often seen in his fêtes galantes).

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