y_, either _before_ or _after_ the sale." And
again, "I _depend_ upon your getting the Lancret (Watteau in the
Catalogue) for me. I have no doubt it will sell for a good sum, most
likely more than it is worth, but we _must_ have it ... I leave it to
you, but I must have it, unless by some unheard of chance it was to go
beyond 3000 guineas." He was fortunate indeed in getting it for L735.

_Mademoiselle Camargo Dancing_ (No. 393), and _La Belle Grecque_ (No.
450), in the Wallace Collection, are good examples of the Comedian
motive treated with more actuality, yet with no less grace. The four
little allegorical pieces in the National Gallery, _The Four Ages of
Man_, are more lively if less romantic, being composed more for the
characters illustrating the subject than for poetical setting.

JEAN BAPTISE JOSEPH PATER was actually a pupil of Watteau. He was ten
years his junior, but was equally unhappy on account of his health, and
died at forty. Like Lancret, he incurred Watteau's displeasure for a
similar reason, though in his case it was rather the fear of what he
would do than what he did that was the cause of Watteau's displeasure.
At the same time, the names of both Lancret and Pater are inseparable
from that of Watteau in the history of painting, and, both in their
choice of subject and their treatment of it, they are hardly
distinguishable to the casual observer. Watteau, it need hardly be said,
was far above the other two, but it was fortunate indeed that his
romantic genius had two such gifted imitators as Lancret and Pater--or
to put it the other way, that they had such a master to imitate, without
whom neither their work nor their influence would have been nearly as
great as it was.

FRANCOIS BOUCHER, though doubtless influenced by Watteau, more
especially at the outset of his brilliant career, was nevertheless
independent of him in carrying forward the art painting in his country,
choosing rather to revert to the patronage of the Court like his
predecessors Le Brun, Rigaud, and Largilliere than to devote himself to
the expression of his own ideas and feelings. Being a pupil of Francois
Le Moine, whose principal work was the decoration of Versailles, it is
not unnatural that Boucher should have succumbed to the influence of
Royalty, especially when exerted in his favour by as charming and as
powerful an agent as Madame de Pompadour. Another early influence which
shaped his artistic tendencies as well as his for