Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Sale, Paris, Christie's, 1 April 2011, lot 97,

where acquired by present owner.

M.A. Dupuy-Vachey, Fragonard et le Roland furieux, Paris 2003, pp. 142-143, no. 56, reproduced

Lively and spirited, with a fervent application of chalk and wash, this vibrant drawing originates from a large group of studies that Fragonard executed, based on the 16^th-century epic poem Orlando Furioso, by Ludovico Ariosto. The poem recounts a complex story of combats between Christians and Saracens, and the romances of the protagonists, and Fragonard clearly revelled in the visual possibilities of these exotic and exciting subjects, producing a magnificent series of at least 176 drawings illustrating Ariosto’s text.¹ The sheer number of drawings that survive highlights the amount of time that Fragonard must have dedicated to these compositions, and the important role they clearly played in his later career. Generally dated to the 1780s, the stimulus for illustrating the verses of this poem still remains a mystery, as the drawings were never engraved. Originally written for the Duke of Este at the court of Ferrara in the early 16^th Century, the poem underwent a revival in popularity two centuries later, when several lavishly illustrated editions of Ariosto’s text were published. It is therefore perfectly possible that Fragonard made his drawings in connection with another such publishing project, and Marie-Anne Dupuy-Vachey has suggested that they might have been commissioned by the artist’s patron Bergeret de Grancourt or his son, Pierre Jacques. Yet at the same time, the drawings are all extremely freely executed, to the point that it is hard to imagine how they could ever have been used as the basis for prints, for which much more precise and easily read designs would have been more appropriate.

^1.Dupuy-Vachey, op. cit., p. 11