Spring (c. 1720–36): Art, History and Details

Spring (c. 1720–36) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jean-Baptiste Pater (French, 1695–1736).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Spring and Summer are two scenes from a four-season series. These landscapes were originally a part of a screen or a decorative panel, indicated by their floral borders and oval shape. The setting of Spring is believed to be the grounds of Montmorency, the country estate of Pierre Crozat (1665–1740), a wealthy financier and art collector in early eighteenth-century Paris. Summer counters Spring's aristocratic leisure by depicting rural labor. Befitting the work's decorative origins, however, Pater's scene belongs to the tradition of the timeless pastoral. More idyllic than a statement about class differences, the reapers peacefully gather sheaves of wheat as shepherds rest with their flocks in the foreground.

Object facts

• Title: Spring
• Date: c. 1720–36
• Creator attribution: Jean-Baptiste Pater (French, 1695–1736)
• Culture: France
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 76.5 x 66 x 9 cm (30 1/8 x 26 x 3 9/16 in.); Unframed: 65 x 53.7 cm (25 9/16 x 21 1/8 in.)
• Collection: P - French 18th Century
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1951.486

Collection credit

Gift of Harry D. Kendrick

Further reading listed by the museum

• Carignan. Catalogue des tableaux du cabinet de feu S.A.S. Monseigneur le prince de Carignan. Paris: De Poilly, 1742.
• Catalogue des tableaux du Cabinet de Feu S.A.S., Monseigneur Le Prince de Carignan. Paris: Chez de Poilly, 1743.
• Ingersoll-Smouse, Florence. Pater. Paris: Les Beaux-arts, édition d'études et de documents, 1928.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.