Jean Baptiste Pater

(Valenciennes 1695–1736 Paris)
A military encampment,
oil on canvas, 63 x 76 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection Henri Michel-Levy (1844–1914), Paris;
his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 12 May 1919, lot 25 (as Pater, ‘Le Bivouvac’);
Private collection, France;
art market, Southern France (2017);
where acquired by the present owner

Literature:
M. Eidelberg, Defining the Oeuvre of Bonaventure de Bar (Part 1), online publication, revised 2016, ill. no.20 (as Pater)

We are grateful to Alistair Laing for confirming the attribution and for his help in cataloguing the present painting.

Pater, like his teacher Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), was a native of Valenciennes and would have had many opportunities in his youth to study the soldiers garrisoned in the town during the later years of the War of Spanish Succession (1701-1713). Indeed, it is possible that as a boy Pater first came to know Watteau when the celebrated artist returned to his hometown for a brief visit in 1710, a period during which Watteau himself made a number of paintings and drawings of military subjects. Pater followed his master’s example in becoming a specialist in paintings of military themes and in 1728 he submitted the canvas Soldiers Celebrating (Louvre, Paris) as his reception piece to the Académie Royal.

The present scene of a traveling military encampment is a superb example of Pater’s works in the genre. It closely follows a scheme established by Watteau: ordinary soldiers, officers and servants, and the women and children who follow the garrison from one encampment to another, are depicted at their leisure, far from the heat of battle, as they rest, sleep, smoke, play cards, amiably converse, and daydream. Each is characterised with a lively wit and energy and executed in fluent and colourful brushstrokes.

Alastair Laing noticed the stylistic similarities with works like the Blindekuhspiel in Potsdam (C. Vogtherr et al., Französische Gemälde I, Berlin 2011, no. 36 (there dated to circa 1732).