Fête champêtre (Pastoral Gathering)
Jean Antoine Watteau (Assisted by Jean-Baptiste Pater (French, 1695-1736))
1718–21
- Medium
- Oil on panel
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 48.6 × 64.5 cm (19 1/16 × 25 3/8 in.); Framed: 74 × 89.9 × 9.6 cm (29 1/8 × 35 3/8 × 3 3/4 in.)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Max and Leola Epstein Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Jean-Antoine Watteau developed the genre of painting known as fête champêtre, featuring courting figures relaxing in a landscape. The elegant figures in Pastoral Gathering are grouped to suggest the three phases of love: childhood innocence (left), romantic enchantment and courtship (center), and amorous attainment (right). The transitory nature of romance is underscored by the changing autumn leaves and waning afternoon light. This painting may have been begun by Watteau toward the end of his career and finished by Jean-Baptiste Pater, who studied under Watteau and completed some of his unfinished projects.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
