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Saint Rita Surrounded by Bees
Jean Honoré Fragonard French
After Pietro Locatelli Italian
Not on view
Toward the end of his stay in Rome, Fragonard created seventy or so chalk drawings for his patron, Saint-Non. While the majority are based on famous works in the Vatican and other frequently visited churches and palaces, this is the sole surviving copy he made in the fifteenth-century church of Sant’Agostino. Pietro Locatelli’s fresco there depicts an episode from the legend of the Augustinian nun Rita of Cascia when, on the day after her baptism, she was swarmed by bees but miraculously not stung. Fragonard’s copy, however, omits the swarm of bees, focusing instead on the more universal theme of rustic domesticity.
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