Jean-Honoré Fragonard Grasse 1732 - 1806 Paris

Acquired by M. Felix Jeantet (director of La Revue Hebdomadaire), 1900;
Thence by descent in the family to his grandson;
By whom sold, Monaco, Sotheby's, February 14, 1983, lot 647, there purchased by the present owners.

J.P. Cuzin, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Vie et oeuvre, Catalogue complet des peintures, Pair 1987, p. 286, cat. no. *138bis;
P. Rosenberg, Fragonard, exhibition catalogue, Paris & New York 1988, p. 186, figure 8;
P. Rosenberg, Tout L'oeuvre peint de Fragonard, Paris 1989, p. 87-88, cat. no. 148, reproduced.

The subject is taken from Jean-François Marmontel's Contes Moraux which was published in Paris in 1761. 

Both Rosenberg and Cuzin suggest that this painting could be a variant of Fragonard's La Tertre (see J.P. Cuzin, under Literature, cat no. 138).