The Stolen Kiss

Jean Honoré Fragonard French

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 631


Fragonard is best known for energetic, broadly brushed paint surfaces, but the high degree of finish and the miraculous, incandescent glow of this painting demonstrate his technical range. The hard paint surface emulates seventeenth-century Dutch painting, but his teacher, François Boucher, inspired the subject of a forcibly pursued kiss, evidently won in a card game. Executed during Fragonard’s first trip to Italy, this was among his first private commissions, probably from the bailli de Bréteuil, Malta’s ambassador to the Holy See.

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

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