The Fortune Teller

The Fortune Teller, painted in 1731 and now at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is a carefully composed version of the fortune-telling scene that Pater explored across his career, placed at the centre of a park gathering. The encounter between a fashionable young person and a gypsy fortune-teller was a recurring theme in French painting from the seventeenth century that offered painters an opportunity to contrast social types and explore the erotic charge of having one's fate read by a mysterious stranger. By 1731 Pater had produced several versions of this subject, and the LACMA canvas shows his mature handling of the narrative: the fortune-teller is slightly apart from the social group, creating a moment of private transaction within the public park, while the surrounding figures react with a range of amusement, curiosity, and mild alarm.

The fortune-teller's dark, contrasting clothing creates the tonal anchor for the composition, providing a strong focal point amid the lighter costumes of the aristocratic gathering. Pater used a relatively deep warm-shadow treatment of the fortune-teller's face and hands that distinguishes her from the more evenly lit figures around her, suggesting her knowledge of things hidden from others.