Jean-Honoré Fragonard is the last great exponent of French rococo art and a bridge to Neo-classicism.
Fragonard’s best works are those that represent amorous adventures or depict single fantasy figures painted with high color and great brio. His masterpiece is the Progress of Love, a series of large canvases commissioned by King Louis XV’s mistress, the duchesse du Barry, and now in the Frick Collection, New York.
Selected artworks
Top 3 auction prices
2021
1999
2013
Notable exhibitions
Washington D.C., The National Gallery of Art, Fragonard: The Fantasy Figures, 8 October – 3 December 2017. Curated by Yuriko Jackall.
Paris, Musée du Luxembourg, Fragonard Amoureux: Galant et Libertin, 16 September – 24 January 2016. Curated by Guillaume Faroult.
Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Fragonard, 24 September – 4 January 1988; travelled to New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2 February – 8 May 1988. Curated by Pierre Rosenberg.
Tokyo, National Museum of Western Art, Fragonard, 18 March – 11 May 1980; travelled to Kyoto, Kyoto Municipal Museum, 24 May – 29 June 1980. Curated by Denys Sutton.
Books on Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Yuriko Jackall, Fragonard: The Fantasy Figures, exh. cat., Washington D.C., 2017.
Guillaume Faroult, ed., Fragonard Amoureux: Galant et Libertin, exh. cat., Paris, 2015.
Pierre Rosenberg, ed., Fragonard, exh. cat., New York, 1988.
Jean-Pierre Cuzin, Fragonard: Vie et oeuvre; Catalogue Complet des Peintures, Paris 1987, trans., 1988.
Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, French Eighteenth-Century Painters: Watteau, Boucher, Chardin, La Tour, Greuze, Fragonard, 1880-2, trans. Robin Ironside, Ithaca, 1981.