Assemblée dans un parc

This painting shows a gallant scene in an unreal landscape, with a colonnade on the left and dwellings in the background, peopled by three groups of figures. On the left, beside a dog, a woman seated with her back turned, a little girl leaning on her knees, faces a turbaned servant presenting a basket. At the centre, a mandolin player performs for five seated figures who converse or read. On the right, a woman holding a fan advances beside a dog, a man and a child behind her. Jean-Baptiste Pater, the most gifted follower of Watteau, painted fêtes galantes such as this between 1715 and 1736 in the master’s poetic vein — the catalogue’s first Pater, on a rectangular support. The painting is held in the Petit Palais, musée des Beaux-arts de la Ville de Paris.