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拍品專文
The present painting is the finest and most finished preparatory study for one of the masterpieces of Fragonard's mature career, the lost Visitation that the artist painted for the Duc de Gramont and which has been missing since 1787. When it appeared in Gramont's sale on 16 January 1775, the finished picture was recorded as measuring 40.5 x 55.3 cm., and it sold for the very considerable sum of 3000 livres. When it returned to the auction block only two years later, however, in the sale of the celebrated collector Randon de Boisset (27 February 1777), it reached a stratospheric price that caused a sensation and was recorded by almost every contemporary observer of the art market: at 7030 livres, it was the highest single price as yet achieved for a work by Fragonard, and among the highest for a contemporary French painting sold in the 18th century. Two weeks after the sale, an anonymous writer in the Journal de Paris observed that 'it is the very stuff of genius.... This painting has fetched a high price and it is well worth the money. And what charms me even more is that I am told the Author himself is sufficiently modest to be astonished by its glory. A good sign. For those geniuses fattened on pride are quite often men of very lean talent.'
When the present sketch appeared at auction less than two months later, as it almost certainly did, in the sale of the collection of the Prince de Conti (8 April 1777), it was described in the catalogue as 'First finished sketch, executed with precision, of the painting which was in M. Randon de Boisset's collection under no. 226', and was identified with its exact dimensions and canvas support. Not surprisingly, in the wake of the spectacular success of the Randon de Boisset sale, the Conti sketch fetched a substantial 2,501 livres. Two other oil sketches by Fragonard are known today for The Visitation, but both are slightly smaller than the Lagerfeld painting and very sketchy in execution: one was last seen when it was sold in Paris in 1966 (Rosenberg, op. cit., 1989, no. 374), while the other -- a beautiful and freely painted study on wood panel -- is in the collection of Gertrude Chanler, New York (ibid., no. 372). A third painting, once belonging to Eugéne Kraemer, that appears in most of the literature on the artist with a tentative attribution to Fragonard (ibid., no. 375) recently resurfaced and was revealed to be a fine, 18-century copy of the composition by another hand. A very damaged wash drawing of the composition, confiscated during the Revolution from the Prince de Condé at Chantilly, is today in the École Polytechnique, Massy-Palaiseau.
Although Fragonard is rarely thought of as a religious painter, he was arguably the finest France produced in the 18th century; his religious paintings, at their best, display the intense inner emotion and physical grace found in the sacred works of Giambattista Tiepolo. Fragonard's Visitation depicts the episode, recounted in the Book of Luke (1:36-56) of the visit of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Elisabeth, shortly after the Annunciation. Their meeting was a joyous one: Mary had conceived, and her elderly cousin was in her sixth month of pregnancy after a lifetime of barrenness. (She would give birth to John the Baptist.) Elisabeth kneels in homage before the Virgin, who climbs the Temple steps surrounded by clouds of cherubim. Barely visible behind Mary is the figure of Joseph; beside Elisabeth, and wearing vestments, is Zacharias, husband of Elisabeth and high priest of the Temple.
Fragonard's painting radiates with an unconcealed joy that is tempered only by the participants' profound awareness of the great responsibilities that have been entrusted to them. A pervasive sense of spirituality is achieved through Fragonard's inventive use of supernatural lighting effects, as was recognized by his contemporaries: as the writer for the Journal de Paris (9 March 1777) observed of Randon de Boisset's version of the subject, '...it is a heavenly light, a miraculous flash of lightning, that attends the cherubim, the watchful guardians of the precious tidings the Virgin bears in her breast. Can't you see that this is the whole point of the work, the very stuff of genius?' Thomas Jefferson's friend, John Trumbell, an American painter then living in Paris, described its effect simply as 'aerial, mystical.'
Fragonard experimented extensively with ingenious and emotion-inducing lighting effects in the early to mid-1770s, and they can be found in many of his religious paintings of the period, including the various versions of The Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Yale University and elsewhere; Rosenberg, op. cit., 1989, nos. 366-8), The Education of the Virgin (Armand Hammer Collection and elsewhere; ibid., nos. 376-8), and The Adoration of the Shepherds (Musée du Louvre, Paris; ibid., no. 379). But comparable effects were employed at the same time and with equal evocativeness in 'profane' works such as 'Le Verrou' (The Bolt) (Musée du Louvre, Paris; ibid., no. 380) -- which was conceived as a pendant to The Adoration of the Shepherds -- and its preparatory sketch (sold at Christie's London, 17 December 1999, lot 95; ibid., no. 381). The Visitation should be dated to the same moment: that is, from approximately 1772/3 to 1775.
When the present sketch appeared at auction less than two months later, as it almost certainly did, in the sale of the collection of the Prince de Conti (8 April 1777), it was described in the catalogue as 'First finished sketch, executed with precision, of the painting which was in M. Randon de Boisset's collection under no. 226', and was identified with its exact dimensions and canvas support. Not surprisingly, in the wake of the spectacular success of the Randon de Boisset sale, the Conti sketch fetched a substantial 2,501 livres. Two other oil sketches by Fragonard are known today for The Visitation, but both are slightly smaller than the Lagerfeld painting and very sketchy in execution: one was last seen when it was sold in Paris in 1966 (Rosenberg, op. cit., 1989, no. 374), while the other -- a beautiful and freely painted study on wood panel -- is in the collection of Gertrude Chanler, New York (ibid., no. 372). A third painting, once belonging to Eugéne Kraemer, that appears in most of the literature on the artist with a tentative attribution to Fragonard (ibid., no. 375) recently resurfaced and was revealed to be a fine, 18-century copy of the composition by another hand. A very damaged wash drawing of the composition, confiscated during the Revolution from the Prince de Condé at Chantilly, is today in the École Polytechnique, Massy-Palaiseau.
Although Fragonard is rarely thought of as a religious painter, he was arguably the finest France produced in the 18th century; his religious paintings, at their best, display the intense inner emotion and physical grace found in the sacred works of Giambattista Tiepolo. Fragonard's Visitation depicts the episode, recounted in the Book of Luke (1:36-56) of the visit of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Elisabeth, shortly after the Annunciation. Their meeting was a joyous one: Mary had conceived, and her elderly cousin was in her sixth month of pregnancy after a lifetime of barrenness. (She would give birth to John the Baptist.) Elisabeth kneels in homage before the Virgin, who climbs the Temple steps surrounded by clouds of cherubim. Barely visible behind Mary is the figure of Joseph; beside Elisabeth, and wearing vestments, is Zacharias, husband of Elisabeth and high priest of the Temple.
Fragonard's painting radiates with an unconcealed joy that is tempered only by the participants' profound awareness of the great responsibilities that have been entrusted to them. A pervasive sense of spirituality is achieved through Fragonard's inventive use of supernatural lighting effects, as was recognized by his contemporaries: as the writer for the Journal de Paris (9 March 1777) observed of Randon de Boisset's version of the subject, '...it is a heavenly light, a miraculous flash of lightning, that attends the cherubim, the watchful guardians of the precious tidings the Virgin bears in her breast. Can't you see that this is the whole point of the work, the very stuff of genius?' Thomas Jefferson's friend, John Trumbell, an American painter then living in Paris, described its effect simply as 'aerial, mystical.'
Fragonard experimented extensively with ingenious and emotion-inducing lighting effects in the early to mid-1770s, and they can be found in many of his religious paintings of the period, including the various versions of The Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Yale University and elsewhere; Rosenberg, op. cit., 1989, nos. 366-8), The Education of the Virgin (Armand Hammer Collection and elsewhere; ibid., nos. 376-8), and The Adoration of the Shepherds (Musée du Louvre, Paris; ibid., no. 379). But comparable effects were employed at the same time and with equal evocativeness in 'profane' works such as 'Le Verrou' (The Bolt) (Musée du Louvre, Paris; ibid., no. 380) -- which was conceived as a pendant to The Adoration of the Shepherds -- and its preparatory sketch (sold at Christie's London, 17 December 1999, lot 95; ibid., no. 381). The Visitation should be dated to the same moment: that is, from approximately 1772/3 to 1775.