La Balançoire

La Balançoire (The Swing) at the Fitzwilliam Museum belongs to a tradition of swing scenes that became one of the most emblematic subjects of French Rococo painting, culminating in Fragonard's famous version for Saint-Julien of 1767. The swing was a charged symbol in eighteenth-century culture — simultaneously a children's pastime, a form of adult flirtation, and a metaphor for the pleasures of aerial freedom and the eroticism of motion. Pater's version, probably somewhat earlier than Fragonard's, treats the subject with his characteristic blend of elegance and informality, placing the swinging figure within a park setting dense with onlookers. The Fitzwilliam's holding connects the work to the Cambridge collection's strong representation of French art.

The swinging figure is rendered in a slight upward displacement that creates a sense of motion within the static image, achieved through the extension of limbs and the billowing of skirts. Pater surrounded this central animated figure with relatively stable background figures whose stillness emphasises the movement at the composition's heart.