Son of a farmer, César Pattein (1850-1931) painted scenes of rustic life focusing on the happy times of the day with children laughing, playing and forgetting the toils of the hard day’s work.
Born in Steenvoorde, in northern France, César Pattein was raised among farmers and maintained a close connection to the rural region throughout his life.
He seldom traveled much further than Lille, with the occasional journey to Paris when exhibiting at the Salon.
While he experimented in his early career with portraiture and historical and religious subjects, Pattein was apt to represent agrarian traditions and rustic rituals, particularly those involving the harvest or other celebrations of agrarian abundance; this eventually led him to the atelier of Jules Breton in the mid-1880s.