The birth of Alexander, after Annibale Carracci

After a period spent in Rome, Fragonard returned to Paris in 1761 in the company of the Abbé de Saint-Non, a connoisseur, writer and amateur printmaker. During this journey Fragonard drew copies of three hundred Old Master paintings. Almost all the drawings carry inscriptions by the Abbé de Saint-Non which identify the prototypes. The Abbé probably hoped to write a guide to cities that he and Fragonard had visited, which could be illustrated with prints after Fragonard's drawings. The present drawing was made after a painting, at the time at the Palazzo Tanari, but its whereabouts are unknown. A counterproof of this drawing is in Darmstadt, and a counterproof of the counterproof is in the Baderou collection at Rouen (M. Roland-Michel, 'Sous le signe de l'abbé de Saint-Non', Etudes de la Revue du Louvre, no. 1, La donation Baderou au Museé de Rouen, Paris, 1980, p. 89).