Monsieur de Pourceaugnac

Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, painted in 1732 and now in the Royal Collection, takes its subject from Molière's 1669 comedy in which a provincial bourgeois from Limoges is subjected to elaborate schemes by a pair of Parisian lovers seeking to prevent his proposed marriage. The play was one of the most frequently revived Molière comedies in the eighteenth century, and its comic scenes of false doctors, legal trickery, and disguise made it a natural subject for Rococo painting. Pater's canvas focuses on a specific episode from the play, translating theatrical comedy into the elegant visual language of the fête and capriccio. The Royal Collection holding places this work alongside the companion Fête Champêtre with Italian Comedians as evidence of Pater's consistent theatrical interests across his career.

Theatrical subject matter required Pater to give his figures more specific character and action than in his pure fête champêtre compositions. The protagonist's flustered provincial quality is rendered through his posture and expression while the Parisian schemers around him exhibit the composed, knowing quality characteristic of Rococo figure types.