Jean-Honoré Fragonard

French, 1732–1806

BiographyFragonard, the only child of tradesmen, was born in the south of France and moved with his family to Paris when he was six. He studied briefly with Chardin and from about 1749 with François Boucher, whom he assisted on decorative commissions and tapestry designs. After winning the Prix de Rome in 1752, he prepared for his trip at the École des Élèves Protégés and then traveled to Italy in late 1756. He remained in Italy through 1761. A pensionnaire at the French Academy in Rome, he copied Italian paintings and sketched en plein air in the Roman campagna with his friend and fellow student Hubert Robert (1733-1808). During the summer of 1760 Fragonard was the guest of the Abbé de Saint-Non (1727-1791) at the Villa d'Este, near Tivoli, and made numerous drawings of the overgrown park and gardens. In 1761 he traveled around Italy with the Abbé, copying recent Italian paintings, and drawing architectural views and landscapes.

Fragonard returned to Paris in 1761 and was accepted as an agréé by the Académie Royale in 1765 for his painting of Coresus and Callirrhoë. Although this painting was a great success at the Salon of that year, Fragonard did not pursue further a career as a history painter within the official salon system. Instead he exploited his talent for rapidly brushed easel paintings and decorative works for private collectors. He worked up several of his Italian sketches into oil paintings and painted and drew genre scenes, amorous pastorales, mythological subjects, and portraits de fantaisie. He made a second extended trip to Italy in 1773-74 with the collector Bergeret de Grancourt (1715-1785). Back in Paris he continued to produce easel paintings and drawings, decorative landscapes, scenes of family life, and portraits of his wife, Marie-Anne Gérard, and his children. The family moved to Grasse in 1789, but returned to Paris in 1792. During the last decade of his life, Fragonard served as the head of the new museum at the Louvre and oversaw the establishment of another at Versailles.

An intuitive and highly original draftsman, Fragonard produced nearly three thousand drawings, autonomous works which were collected by friends and patrons. His drawn oeuvre includes all the subjects of his paintings, plus several series of drawings for book illustrations. The two Italian trips resulted in many sketches done in situ and inspired many more souvenirs de mémoire done back in Paris. The influence of these picturesque scenes of Italy is felt throughout his varied oeuvre, from 1761 until the end of his career.