Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Baron Benoist-Méchin,
his sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 7 May 1912, lot 5;
Private Collection,
from whom acquired by the present owner in 1965

London, Wildenstein, French Drawings, XVI-XIX Century, 1979 (no catalogue);
Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, Fragonard, 1980, no. 126, reproduced;
New York, Wildenstein, French Master Drawings from the 16th through the 18th Centuries, 1999 (no catalogue);
New York, Wildenstein, French Drawings, Watercolors, and Pastels, 2004 (no catalogue)

A. Ananoff, L'Oeuvre dessiné de Jean-Honoré Fragonard, vol. I, Paris, 1961, p. 166, no. 391, reproduced fig. 141;
P. Rosenberg, Fragonard, exh. cat., Paris, Grand Palais, and New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1987-88, p. 503, under no. 252;
C. Ruas, 'Exhibition Review: French Drawings, Watercolors, and Pastels', Art News, vol. CIII, Summer 2004, p. 169

Laid down. The sheet has discolored slightly. Scattered foxing throughout, more concentrated in the upper right section of the sheet. Medium still strong Sold in carved and gilded frame.
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This large and impressive drawing by Fragonard is one of several in which he depicts river gods, all subtly different in mood and narrative content.  In one late and imposing upright composition, for example, the monumental figure of the god looms threateningly, surrounded by snakes¹, while in another, the focus is much more on a sense of frenzied, watery movement and form dissolves away almost entirely.²  Here, though, there is a much clearer narrative element; the river god seems startled by the sudden appearance of the torch-brandishing figures, who, though apparently equally startled to discover the elderly deity, none the less threaten him with their expressions and gestures.

Ananoff (loc. cit.) interpreted the subject as a group of irate peasants accosting a river god who has diverted the stream that provides the water on which they rely, and therefore saw this drawing as one of Fragonard’s illustrations of literary texts, but no corresponding scene or episode has yet been identified in either classical or more recent literature.  All the same, the approach to the composition and the rapid, skilful technique in which brown wash is loosely applied over an extensive yet light and sketchy black chalk under-drawing, is consistent with Fragonard’s other drawings illustrating literary or historical themes. 

¹ Rosenberg, loc. cit.

² Sale, New York, Sotheby’s, 24 January 2007, lot 71