The subject of this print has never been verified; the current title first appeared in an 1859 publication. The etching’s crisp style, with flickering highlights and large swaths of untouched white paper, recalls the manner of the Venetian master Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696–1770). Fragonard could have seen Tiepolo’s prints during his two stays in Venice (with Saint-Non in 1761 and with Bergeret in 1774), and in Paris, where each new series was avidly sought by collectors.
Artwork Details
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Inscription: Inscribed in the plate: at bottom center, just above framing line, "fragonard 1778"
Vendor: Knoedler and Co. (French, British, American)
National Museum of Western Art. "Fragonard," March 18, 1980–May 11, 1980.
Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art. "Fragonard," May 24, 1980–June 29, 1980.
Baltimore Museum of Art. "Regency to Empire: French Printmaking 1715-1814," November 1, 1984–January 6, 1985.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "Regency to Empire: French Printmaking 1715-1814," February 6, 1985–March 31, 1985.
Minneapolis Institute of Arts. "Regency to Empire: French Printmaking 1715-1814," April 17, 1985–June 23, 1985.
Paris. Galeries nationales du Grand Palais. "Fragonard," September 24, 1987–January 4, 1988.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Fragonard," February 2–May 8, 1988.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Fragonard: Drawing Triumphant," October 6, 2016–January 8, 2017.
Wildenstein 24
Georges Wildenstein Fragonard Acquafortiste. Études et documents pour servir à l'histoire de l'art français du dix-huitième siècle, Paris, 1956, cat. no. 24, p. 34, ill.
Perrin Stein, Rena Hoisington “Sous les yeux de Fragonard: The Prints of Marguerite Gérard" Print Quarterly. XXIX no. 2. 2012, fig. no. 119, pp. 143-7, ill.
Perrin Stein, Marie-Anne Dupuy-Vachey, Eunice Williams, Kelsey Brosnan Fragonard--Drawing Triumphant. New York, 2016, cat. no. 80, 233, ill.
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The Met's collection of drawings and prints—one of the most comprehensive and distinguished of its kind in the world—began with a gift of 670 works from Cornelius Vanderbilt, a Museum trustee, in 1880.