Jean-Honor Fragonard

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Jean-Honor Fragonard

From a self-portrait, at the Muse Fragonard
Born
Jean-Honor Nicolas Fragonard
[1]

5 April 1732
Grasse, France
Died
22 August 1806 (aged 74)
Paris, France
Nationality French
Education
Chardin, Boucher,
French Academy in Rome,
Charles-Andr van Loo
Known for Painting, drawing, etching
Notable work(s)
The Swing, A Young Girl Reading, The
Bolt
Movement Rococo
Awards Prix de Rome
Jean-Honor Fragonard (French: [ onoe faon]; 5 April 1732
[2]
in Grasse 22 August
1806 in Paris) was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished
by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific artists active in the
last decades of the Ancien Rgime, Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings (not counting
drawings and etchings), of which only five are dated. Among his most popular works are genre
paintings conveying an atmosphere of intimacy and veiled eroticism.
Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
2 Reputation
3 Value of works
4 Works
5 Recent exhibitions
6 See also
7 References and sources
o 7.1 References
o 7.2 Sources
8 Further reading
9 External links
Biography[edit]
Jean-Honor Fragonard was born at Grasse, Alpes-Maritimes, the son of Franois Fragonard, a
glover, and Franoise Petit.
[1]


Statue of Fragonard in Grasse, his birthplace
Fragonard was articled to a Paris notary when his father's circumstances became strained through
unsuccessful speculations, but showed such talent and inclination for art that he was taken at the
age of eighteen to Franois Boucher. Boucher recognized the youth's rare gifts but, disinclined to
waste his time with one so inexperienced, sent him to Chardin's atelier. Fragonard studied for six
months under the great luminist, then returned more fully equipped to Boucher, whose style he
soon acquired so completely that the master entrusted him with the execution of replicas of his
paintings.
Though not yet a pupil of the Academy, Fragonard gained the Prix de Rome in 1752 with a
painting of "Jeroboam Sacrificing to the Golden Calf", but before proceeding to Rome he
continued to study for three years under Charles-Andr van Loo. In the year preceding his
departure he painted the "Christ washing the Feet of the Apostles" now at Grasse Cathedral. On
17 September 1756, he took up his abode at the French Academy in Rome, then presided over by
Charles-Joseph Natoire.
While at Rome, Fragonard contracted a friendship with a fellow painter, Hubert Robert. In 1760,
they toured Italy together, executing numerous sketches of local scenery. It was in these romantic
gardens, with their fountains, grottos, temples and terraces, that Fragonard conceived the dreams
which he was subsequently to render in his art. He also learned to admire the masters of the
Dutch and Flemish schools (Rubens, Hals, Rembrandt, Ruisdael), imitating their loose and
vigorous brushstrokes. Added to this influence was the deep impression made upon his mind by
the florid sumptuousness of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, whose works he had an opportunity to
study in Venice before he returned to Paris in 1761.
In 1765 his "Coresus et Callirhoe" secured his admission to the Academy. It was made the
subject of a pompous (though not wholly serious) eulogy by Diderot, and was bought by the
king, who had it reproduced at the Gobelins factory. Hitherto Fragonard had hesitated between
religious, classic and other subjects; but now the demand of the wealthy art patrons of Louis
XV's pleasure-loving and licentious court turned him definitely towards those scenes of love and
voluptuousness with which his name will ever be associated, and which are only made
acceptable by the tender beauty of his color and the virtuosity of his facile brushwork; such
works include the Blind Man's Bluff (Le collin maillard),
[3]
Serment d'amour (Love Vow), Le
Verrou (The Bolt), La Culbute (The Tumble), La Chemise enleve (The Shirt Removed), and
L'escarpolette (The Swing, Wallace Collection), and his decorations for the apartments of Mme
du Barry and the dancer Madeleine Guimard. The portrait of Denis Diderot (1769) has recently
had its attribution to Fragonard called into question.
Landscape with Shepherds and Flock of Sheep, c. 1763-65, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo
A lukewarm response to these series of ambitious works induced Fragonard to abandon Rococo
and to experiment with Neoclassicism. He married Marie-Anne Grard, herself a painter of
miniatures,
[4]
(17451823) on 17 June 1769 and had a daughter, Rosalie Fragonard (17691788),
who became one of his favourite models. In October 1773, he again went to Italy with Pierre-
Jacques Onzyme Bergeret de Grancourt and his son, Pierre-Jacques Bergeret de Grancourt. In
September 1774, he returned through Vienna, Prague, Dresden, Frankfurt and Strasbourg.
Back in Paris Marguerite Grard, his wife's 14-year-old sister, became his pupil and assistant in
1778. In 1780, he had a son, Alexandre-variste Fragonard (17801850), who eventually
became a talented painter and sculptor. The French Revolution deprived Fragonard of his private
patrons: they were either guillotined or exiled. The neglected painter deemed it prudent to leave
Paris in 1790 and found shelter in the house of his cousin Maubert at Grasse, which he decorated
with the series of decorative panels known as the Les progrs de l'amour dans le cur d'une
jeune fille,
[5]
originally painted for Chteau du Barry.
[6]

Jean-Honor Fragonard returned to Paris early in the nineteenth century, where he died in 1806,
almost completely forgotten.
Reputation[edit]

The Swing (French: L'escarpolette), 1767, Wallace Collection, London.
For half a century or more he was so completely ignored that Lbke in his History of Art (1873)
omits the very mention of his name.[1] Subsequent reevaluation has confirmed his position
among the all-time masters of French painting. The influence of Fragonard's handling of local
colour and expressive, confident brushstroke on the Impressionists (particularly his grand niece,
Berthe Morisot, and Renoir) cannot be overestimated. Fragonard's paintings, alongside those of
Franois Boucher, seem to sum up an era.
[7]

One of the most renowned painting of Fragonard is The Swing, also known as The Happy
Accidents of the Swing its original title, is an oil painting by Jean-Honor Fragonard in the
Wallace Collection in London. It is considered to be one of the masterpieces of the rococo era,
and is Fragonard's best known work.
[8]
The painting portrays a young gentleman concealed in the
bushes, observing a lady on swing being pushed by her spouse, who is standing in the
background, hidden in the shadows, as he is unaware of the affair. As the lady swings forward,
the young man gets a glimpse under her dress. According to Charles Coll's memoirs
[9]
a young
nobleman
[10]
had requested this portrait of his mistress seated on a swing. He asked first Gabriel
Franois Doyen to make this painting of him and his mistress. Not comfortable with this
frivolous work, Doyen refused and passed on the commission to Fragonard.
[9]

Value of works[edit]
On December 5, 2013, in Bonhams New Bond Street, London, Salerooms the Fragonard portrait
of Franois-Henri duc d'Harcourt sold for 17,106,500 Sterling - US $28,058,081 - setting a
World record price for the artist at auction. The previous record was 5,300,000 for a painting
sold in London in 1999. The sum paid is also the highest price for an Old Master Painting sold at
auction anywhere in the World in 2013. Bonhams' sale of paintings and sculpture from the
renowned collection of the German philanthropist, the late Dr Gustav Rau, raised more than 19
million, with the proceeds benefiting the Foundation of the German Committee for UNICEF
for the children of the world.
[11][12]