Jean-Honoré Fragonard
1732-1806
An Imaginary Italian Garden
after 1774
11 3/4 x 16 5/8 inches (298 x 422 mm)
Brown wash over black chalk
2001.59
Thaw Collection.
Notes
This free and bold capriccio, or fantasy view of antique ruins, may have been inspired by the work of Fragonard's contemporary Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Fragonard may have known the Italian master while a pensionnaire in Rome at the French Academy between 1756-60: they shared a mutual friend in Hubert Robert. The confidence of handling, with a freely scumbled black chalk drawing enriched by fluid veils of wash, is characteristic of Fragonard's mature drawings and a date in the mid-1770s can tentatively be advanced.
Associated names
Maison, K. E., former owner.
Wertheimer, Otto, 1896-1973, former owner.
Hanley, T. Edward, former owner.
Thaw, Eugene Victor, former owner.
Thaw, Clare, former owner.
Wertheimer, Otto, 1896-1973, former owner.
Hanley, T. Edward, former owner.
Thaw, Eugene Victor, former owner.
Thaw, Clare, former owner.
Bibliography
Thaw Catalogue Raisonné, 2017, no. 125, repr.
Stampfle, Felice, and Cara D. Denison. Drawings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene V. Thaw. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1975, no. 36, repr.
Denison, Cara D. The Thaw Collection : Master Drawings and New Acquisitions. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1994, p. 259, repr.
Denison, Cara, Myra Nan Rosenfeld, and Stephanie Wiles. Exploring Rome : Piranesi and His Contemporaries. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library; Montréal : Centre Canadien d'Architecture, 1993, no. 93, repr.
Alexandre Ananoff, "L'Oeuvre dessiné de Jean-Honoré Fragonard", 4 vols., Paris, 1961-1970, I, no. 364, fig. 133.
Stein, Perrin, et al. Fragonard: Drawing Triumphant: Works from New York Collections, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016, no. 67.
Stampfle, Felice, and Cara D. Denison. Drawings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene V. Thaw. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1975, no. 36, repr.
Denison, Cara D. The Thaw Collection : Master Drawings and New Acquisitions. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1994, p. 259, repr.
Denison, Cara, Myra Nan Rosenfeld, and Stephanie Wiles. Exploring Rome : Piranesi and His Contemporaries. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library; Montréal : Centre Canadien d'Architecture, 1993, no. 93, repr.
Alexandre Ananoff, "L'Oeuvre dessiné de Jean-Honoré Fragonard", 4 vols., Paris, 1961-1970, I, no. 364, fig. 133.
Stein, Perrin, et al. Fragonard: Drawing Triumphant: Works from New York Collections, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016, no. 67.
Artist
Classification
Century Drawings
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