The Little Park
<p>Fragonard spent the summer of 1760 at the Villa d’Este in Tivoli, where he produced several renowned red chalk drawings of the gardens. For over two centuries, it was assumed that <em>The Little Park</em>, one of the artist’s most popular etchings, was part of the Tivoli series, but visitors to the Italian estate could never find the exact vantage point from which he could have drawn the composition. A recent study of Fragonard’s oeuvre revealed that the artist copied, with great accuracy, the two large trees, balustrade, and cypress from one of the 1760 sketches. The sculptures, grotto, and building are wholly invented. As in much of his work, Fragonard prioritized the depiction of nature, employing the geometry of architectural details to anchor the wild verdant canopy and undergrowth and provide a place of respite.</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1761
- Dimensions
- Plate: 11.2 × 16.5 cm (4 7/16 × 6 1/2 in.); Sheet: 13.5 × 18.6 cm (5 3/8 × 7 3/8 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Artist
Painting
Jean-Honoré Fragonard was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific artists active in the last decades of the Ancien Régime, Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings, of which only five are dated. Among his most popular works are genre paintings conveying an atmosphere of intimacy and veiled eroticism.
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More by Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Rinaldo, Astride Baiardo, Flies Off in Pursuit of Angelica
1795 · black chalk with brown wash and touches of pen andbrown ink on laid paper
Rinaldo is Welcomed by the Monks
1780 · pen and brown ink with brown and gray wash over black chalk on laid paper
Astolfo Sails off with Andronica and Sofrosina
1780 · Black chalk, with pen and brush and brown ink and brush and brown wash, on off-white laid paper
Don Quixote Attacking the Windmill
1780 · black chalk with brown and gray wash on laid paper
Don Quixote Attacking the Biscayan
1780 · brush with brown and gray washes over charcoal on laid paper
Don Quixote Defeated by the Windmill
1780 · brush with brown and gray washes over charcoal on laid paper
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- Jean-Honoré Fragonard
- Year
- 1761
- Dimensions
- Plate: 11.2 × 16.5 cm (4 7/16 × 6 1/2 in.); Sheet: 13.5 × 18.6 cm (5 3/8 × 7 3/8 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1761-112720
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified