Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Jean - Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806)

Jean-Honoré Fragonard (4 April 1732-22 August 1806) was a French painter and printmakerwhose 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 (not counting drawings and etchings), of which only five are dated. Among his most popular works are genre paintings conveying an atmosphere of intimacy and veiled eroticism.

For half a century or more he was so completely ignored that Wilhelm Lübke's 1873 art history volume omits the very mention of his name. Subsequent reevaluation has confirmed his position among the all-time masters of French painting. The influence of Fragonard's handling of local colour and expressive, confident brushstroke on the Impressionists (particularly his grand niece, Berthe Morisot, and Renoir) cannot be overestimated. Fragonard's paintings, alongside those of François Boucher, seem to sum up an era.

One of Fragonard's most renowned paintings is The Swing, also known as The Happy Accidents of the Swing (its original title), an oil painting in the Wallace Collection in London. It is considered to be one of the masterpieces of the rococo era, and is Fragonard's best known work. The painting portrays a young gentleman concealed in the bushes, observing a lady on swing being pushed by her spouse, who is standing in the background, hidden in the shadows, as he is unaware of the affair. As the lady swings forward, the young man gets a glimpse under her dress. According to Charles Collé's memoirs a young nobleman had requested this portrait of his mistress seated on a swing. He asked first  Gabriel François Doyen to make this painting of him and his mistress. Not comfortable with this frivolous work, Doyen refused and passed on the commission to Fragonard.

On December 5, 2013, in Bonhams New Bond Street, London, Salerooms the Fragonard portrait of François-Henri duc d'Harcourt sold for £17,106,500 Sterling – US $28,058,081 – setting a world record price for the artist at auction. The previous record was £5,300,000 for a painting sold in London in 1999. The sum paid is also the highest price for an Old Master Painting sold at auction anywhere in the world in 2013. Bonhams' sale of paintings and sculpture from the renowned collection of the German philanthropist, the late Dr Gustav Rau, raised more than £19 million, with the proceeds benefiting the Foundation of the German Committee for UNICEF – for the children of the world.