Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Rothschild Collections, France(?)

New York, Wildenstein, The Arts of France from François I^er to Napoléon I^er: A Centennial Celebration of Wildenstein's Presence in New York, 26 October 2005 - 6 January 2006, no. 102, reproduced in colour, pp. 253 and 254.

J. Baillio et al, in the exhibition catalogue, The Arts of France from François I^er to Napoléon I^er: A Centennial Celebration of Wildenstein's Presence in New York, New York 2005, p. 253, no. 102

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. These two paintings have fairly recent linings and stretchers and have also quite recently been restored. The impasted brushwork is well preserved. Blonde girl with roses. This painting has a narrow vertical crack close to the left edge, with a thin line of retouching, and a horizontal crack straight across a lower section also narrowly touched out. There are faint oval stretcher bar lines that haven't needed retouching, and some characteristically eighteenth century circular craquelure. Some of the craquelure in the head has been lightly muted as it has also elsewhere in places, and in the central blue background to the left of the figure there are several small lost flakes or little old knocks filled and retouched. One or two others can be seen under ultra violet light by the right edge among the roses. These are a little worn in places, with some pentimenti. A few other roses lower down sometimes have slightly thin final strokes. The breast also appears to have a pentiment slightly visible and to have been slightly enlarged to the left. The head itself has superficial strengthening touches on the shaded right cheek, as has the lower arm, with wear in some places, while the denser bright brushwork of the drapery and the creamy light strokes on the forehead and widely elsewhere are beautifully intact. Girl with brown hair holding roses. This painting has a seam at half left, which is undisturbed and intact. There is narrow vertical line of craquelure touched out, running down to the right of the mouth into the neck, with some other craquelure muted in places; also a patch of retouching near the lower left edge, other patches of retouching by the elbow in the right sky and among the roses at lower right, with several along the base, and a few small flakes in the central arm. The roses on the left are rather faint, but were originally apparently only hinted at. The original blue drapery was radically transformed to yellow in a rapid reworking. Some of these vigorous brush strokes adhered better than others and the blue can be seen re-emerging in the main lower drapery as well as further up by the raised arm and on the ribbon in the hair. The impasto is particularly rich and crisp throughout and the sure, creamy texture remains splendidly fresh. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Previously unrecorded and unpublished, these two magnificent portraits became a major addition to Fragonard's known oeuvre when they were exhibited for the first time only recently in New York. In style and date they are mature works by Fragonard and epitomise the combination of virtuoso paintwork and rococo elegance which made him the most brilliant and versatile painter in eighteenth century France. Not their least remarkable aspect is that until their recent appearance, these paintings had eluded all scholarly or critical attention and they are here offered at auction for the very first time.

These portraits almost certainly date from the early 1770s, one of the most brilliant and fertile periods in Fragonard's career. They are very similar in both subject and style to a number of other paintings from this date, whose crowning glory is Fragonard's series of four panels depicting The Triumph of Love, painted in 1772 for Madame du Barry for the Salon en cul-de-four of her new pavilion at Louveciennes, and  today in the Frick Collection in New York.¹ Although ultimately rejected by Madame du Barry in favour of works by Vien, they represent the crowning moment of Fragonard's career and represent the greatest decorative ensemble painted in France in the 18th century. These portraits share with the Frick panels a heightened sense of colour and brilliance of touch as well as a similar approach to their subjects. Just as the protagonists in the Frick paintings disport in garden settings profusely strewn with roses - the flower sacred to Venus, the Roman goddess of love - so too both portraits take up the theme, one girl with a garland of pink roses around her neck, the other taking roses from a bush and tying  them in her hair with yellow and blue ribbons. Indeed, so close do they come to the Frick panels, that Joseph Baillio, writing in the 2006 exhibition catalogue remarks upon the striking similarity between the blonde haired girl in these portraits with another in L'Amant couronné or The Lover crowned in New York, suggesting that one and the same model may have served Fragonard for both works. Certainly the two paintings complement each other closely: the pale yellow satin of the blonde girl's dress and her garland of pink roses, is echoed by the pink robe of her companion, tied behind with a brilliant yellow sash. A very visible pentimento in the latter painting shows that the pink dress had originally been extended by Fragonard further to the left.

The present works belong to a group of roughly a dozen paintings of oval format and similar subjects which Fragonard seems to have painted at this date. Their original purpose or subject is not, however, known. It is clear that they were intended as pendants, and they may even have been portraits. Two very similar oval portraits, said to depict two sisters of the Colombe family, in which the sitters are again shown at half length with a profusion of roses, were formerly in the collection of William Randolph Hearst in New York² and another, now in a private collection, shows a young lady of the Guimard family crowned with roses.³ Other portraits from this group, some again traditionally said to depict members of the Colombe family, show their sitters in romantic or classical guise as Venus, Amor or Minerva, though some were clearly unlikely to have been intended as likenesses. Such subjects were of course ideally suited to Fragonard's extraordinary virtuosity, and his (unique) independence of official circles in Paris⁴ allowed him the freedom to concentrate on the so-called 'lesser' genres that were more suited to his talents. Although his contemporaries and supporters such as Diderot thus accused him of compromising his artistic integrity, Fragonard evidently found a ready and eager market for such works, executed with a remarkable freedom of the brush.  As Pierre Rosenberg memorably remarked of his style: 'II y a chez l'artiste une sensualité de la palette, du métier, de l'exécution, de la peinture, une sensualité et une impétuosité, un allant et une allégresse qui le distingue parmi tous les peintres' .⁵

 

1. For which see, for example, J-P. Cuzin, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, vie et oeuvre, Fribourg 1987, pp. 143-155, colour plates 180-187.
2. Cuzin, op. cit., p. 303, cat. nos. 220 and 221. the pair remained together until the latter was sold New York, Sotheby Parke-Bernet, 22-23 January 1976, lot 23
3. Ibid., p. 304, no. 227.
4. Although approved (agréé) by the Academie Royale in 1765, Fragonard never sought to be received (réçu) there and seldom exhibited at the Salon.
5. Introduction to the exhibition catalogue, Fragonard, New York, Metropolitan Museum and Paris, Grand Palais, 1987-88, p. 22.