Gathering in a Park

Gathering in a Park, dated 1750 and now at the São Paulo Museum of Art, is a late work in Pater's catalogue — or at least attributed to that date, which would be posthumous if Pater died in 1736 as documented — and may represent a studio work, a later date added to the canvas, or a work by a close follower. Taking it as broadly within the Pater orbit, it belongs to the large body of outdoor gathering scenes that maintained the fête champêtre tradition into the second half of the eighteenth century as younger painters such as Fragonard and Saint-Aubin developed the genre. The São Paulo Museum's holding places this work within the extraordinary South American collection assembled by Francisco de Assis Chateaubriand in the mid-twentieth century.

The composition retains the characteristic Pater formula of a sheltered park space framed by trees, with figures in animated social interaction across the foreground and middle distance. If produced around 1750, the handling may show influences from the next generation of Rococo painters in slightly looser spatial arrangement and a warmer, more varied palette.