The Robber of the Sparrow's Nest

Watteau's The Robber of the Sparrow's Nest of around 1712 depicts a young man climbing a tree to steal birds while a girl below watches — a conventional pastoral subject that Watteau transforms through his characteristic attention to the psychological relationship between figures. The climbing boy's absorption in his task and the girl's watchful attention create a study in differing degrees of involvement with shared experience. Such simple outdoor narrative subjects provided Watteau with material to develop the atmospheric landscape settings that would define his mature fête galante compositions.

Watteau renders the pastoral scene with his developing mastery of landscape and figure painting. The warm palette and the careful rendering of foliage and costume demonstrate the influence of Rubens on his emerging style.