Paintings Drawings Sculptures 2016 - Jean Luc Baroni

2. Jean-Honoré Fragonard, To the Glory of Benjamin Franklin,
collection of the White House, Washington DC.
and it was only on forcing himself to study the paintings of
artists such as Barocci, Cortona, Solimena and Tiepolo that he
was able to revitalise himself. Natoire was at first angry and then
disappointed by Fragonard’s inactivity and his hesitant attempts
to work again (his entrance presentations for the Academy les
dispositions brilliantes, having been so remarkable) but gradually,
Natoire’s reports to Paris improve and the work sent for approval
regains respect; a letter of 31 July 1759 sent to the Marquis de
Marigny notes that he is more satisfied with the Fragonard’s
drawings which are made with delicacy and clarity and by
1760: Fragonard travaille avec success .. et promet beaucoup 5 .
Jean-Pierre Cuzin discusses the academy drawings noting that
of the six or seven believed to be by Fragonard, those which are
more purely academic such as one in the Musée des Beaux-Arts,
Orléans of a Deacon holding a Book might date from the autumn
of 1758 while a more energetic example, such as the Study of
a Bishop, in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (fig.1), might date
from the following year 6 . In 1760, Fragonard passed months
working at Tivoli, in the company of the Abbé de Saint-Non
and travelled to Naples with Ango before beginning the slow
return journey to France, studying constantly, as his drawings of
paintings, monuments, views and people record.
A testament to this study’s grandeur is the fact that it was formerly
considered to be a preparatory study for Fragonard’s composition
of 1778, Au Génie de Franklin known from a drawing now in
the collection of the White House, Washington D.C. (fig.2)
which was used for an etching by Marguérite Gérard (498 x
315mm. (21 ½ x 17 ¼ in.) The similarity in the figure’s glorified
pose is, however, more probably an echo rather than an actual
connection as the present drawing must be roughly twenty years
earlier. As so little of Fragonard’s early academic work survives,
this present work, with it’s powerful style and particularly lively
character, is an important record of Fragonard’s development in
these intense and formative years, the luminous effects of the
shading and eccentric face an early illustration of his brilliant
draughtsmanship and quick development.
130
actual size detail