Imaginary View of a Roman Villa
Jean Honoré Fragonard French
Not on view
One nineteenth-century writer described this Roman villa as the Villa Borghese; another later identified it as the Villa Doria Pamphili. We now know that the stately residence and its garden were drawn from imagination in Fragonard’s Italian studio. The drawing dates from the artist’s second trip to Italy in 1773-74 when he was generally more preoccupied with the mood of his subject than the rendering of actual appearance. Magnificent parasol pines populate the landscape. Fragonard’s fascination with the elegance and complexity of pine branches is evidenced by the delicate tracery of their extensive under drawing.
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