Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Fragonard, Jean-Honoré (French painter and draftsman, 1732-1806)

One of the best known Rococo painters. Born in the small city of Grasse, France to a family of shopkeepers and glove-makers, Fragonard moved to Paris with his family in 1738. While still in his teens, he apprenticed to Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin for just six months and then worked in François Boucher's studio. He won the Prix de Rome in 1752, then spent three preparatory years under Carle Vanloo before studying at the Académie de France in Rome from 1756 to 1761. Fragonard also drew landscapes with Hubert Robert and traveled to southern Italy and Venice. Fragonard's submission to the Salon of 1765 earned him associate academy membership, yet he opted out of an official career of history painting. Preferring to make lighthearted, erotic pictures for private clients, he only exhibited at the Salon twice. He is known for cheerful scenes and lightning brush strokes which reinvigorated the Rococo style. He painted mythology, gallantry, landscape, and portraiture and drew in wide-ranging media, often signing his works "Frago." The French Revolution ended Fragonard's career and made him a pauper. Admiring his work, the Neoclassical painter Jacques-Louis David attempted to assist by making him curator of the future Musée du Louvre. Unable to adapt to the new style of painting, however, Fragonard died forgotten in Napoleon's France.