Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
A Park Landscape
Jean Honoré Fragonard French
Not on view
This representation of an overgrown garden, thick with vegetation, demonstrates Fragonard’s early mastery of the landscape genre. The artist’s meandering red chalk lines depict the twisted trunks, dangling branches, and bushy shrubs flanking a grand set of stone stairs with balustrades. In addition to red chalk, Fragonard introduced a second tone: a brownish variety of chalk, called sanguine brulée because of its burnt hue, which became popular in the mid-1700s. He dexterously intertwined the two colors in the foliage and grass, while using the darker shade alone in the trunk of the forked tree and in some of its errant branches.
Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
