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Circle of Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Gathering with Young Lovers – C18th watercolour An original 18th-century watercolour painting, Circle of Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Gathering with Young Lovers.
An intriguing miniature study in grisaille with a possible attribution to Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732– 1806). The genre scene depicted shows a playful and intimate gathering with young women around a seated man, who appears to be reading to the ladies, most likely poetry, a romantic letter or verse. The figure entering at the right, poised to interrupt the narrative, introduces further dramatic tension to the scene.
The voluptuous and flirtatious subject of this small sketch is in the late-Rococo style for which Fragonard became best known. Fragonard was a master of French genre painting, or peinture de genre (which suggested any type of painting that was not history painting), feeding the demands of the wealthy art patrons of Louis XVs pleasure-loving and licentious court. During these years the centre of French society increasingly shifted from the royal palace at Versailles to Paris, where refined social life flourished in the citys more intimate and private town houses. There was a flourishing in popular tastes for images of moral drama, sweet sentiment, and a fascination with the movements of the heart.
In grisaille wash on laid paper. Laid down on card mount with window cut verso and presented in a pale taupe window mount.
Provenance: William Drummond (Covent Garden Gallery, London).
Details Signed: No.Inscribed: Inscribed in later hand on verso and on mount.Dated: --Height (cm): 15.7 Width (cm): 14.6Height (inches): 6.18 Width (inches): 5.75Condition: Small foxing mark to the lower left edge. Minor marks to the mount. Please see photos for detail.Presented: In a window mount.Stock Number: JX-712All artworks come with a Certificate of Authenticity and—if it is a collection artwork—its accompanying collection text or artist biography.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806) was one of the most prolific of the 18th-century painters and draftsmen. Born in the Provençal city of Grasse, Fragonard moved with his family to Paris in 1738. He spent some time in the busy studio of François Boucher before successfully competing for the Prix de Rome in 1752. He then pursued studies at the École Royale des Élèves Protégés in Paris, following the standard training for a history painter.
In 1756 Fragonard travelled to Rome, staying at the French Academy in Rome until 1761. He toured Italy with fellow painter, Hubert Robert, executing numerous sketches of local scenery. It was in these romantic gardens, with their fountains, grottos, temples and terraces, that Fragonard conceived the dreams which he was subsequently to render in his art. He also learned to admire the masters of the Dutch and Flemish schools and was impressed by the florid sumptuousness of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.
Returning to Paris in 1761, Fragonard found an eager market for his Rococo cabinet pictures and chose to turn away from history painting and royal commissions in favour of work for private collectors. He became particularly masterful in red chalk, producing drawings as finished works of art in their own right. He also further developed the painterly virtuosity of his canvases, working with great rapidity and little blending.
Later, he tried to adapt to changing tastes and tried to remake his style in the neoclassical manner, but his work fell out of favour and he died in relative obscurity in 1806.
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Somerset & Wood was founded in 2015 near Bath, UK in the beautiful Cotswold market town of Bradford on Avon. Today the Gallery is run by founding owners Ayumi Ellingham and Olivia Nicholls. The Somerset & Wood project grew out of a desire to share our interests in art, history and design, and to champion the sometimes underrated field of British drawings and watercolours. We bring to the project combined professional arts backgrounds, in museums & galleries, art dealership and illustration. After completing a first class MA in English at the University of Cambridge and an MSc in History of Art with distinction at the University of Edinburgh, our Art Historian, Olivia Nicholls, worked for many years at the National Galleries of Scotland, and subsequently as an independent editor and art historian.
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