The Love Letter

Jean Honoré Fragonard French

Not on view

Finish is a relative term in Fragonard’s paintings. Here, over a brown tone, Fragonard seems to sketch with the tip of his brush energetic strokes of varying thickness that capture sunlight that lands at the center of the canvas, along the woman’s cap, powdered face, flowers, dress, and dog. This painting should not be read as a portrait, but as a genre scene that takes up a key eighteenth-century theme, the love letter, in which the appreciation of the work is as much about how Fragonard paints as what he depicts.

#2215. The Love Letter

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The Love Letter, Jean Honoré Fragonard (French, Grasse 1732–1806 Paris), Oil on canvas

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