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The Guitarist
Jean-Baptiste Pater (French, 1695–1736)
1720s
- Medium
- red chalk
- Classification
- Drawing
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Drawings
- Credit line
- Dudley P. Allen Fund
- 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 Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Like his illustrious master, Watteau, Jean-Baptiste Pater specialized in fêtes galantes, paintings that featured elegantly attired men and women in bucolic settings engaged in decorously amorous play. Also like his teacher, Pater worked out his preliminary ideas in red chalk studies. During the 17th century, guitar virtuosos from Italy and Spain made their way to the court of Louis XIV, and by the 18th century, the instrument had become integrated into French culture of gallantry and featured prominently in fêtes galantes.
