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Lot Essay
The present landscape belongs to a body of roughly 30 paintings, made over a period of ten years, in which Fragonard reproduced the manner of 17th-century Dutch landscapes, especially those of Jacob van Ruisdael. Circumstantial evidence indicates that Fragonard travelled through Holland in the mid-1760s or early 1770s, but it is clear that he painted ‘Dutch’-style landscapes well before the journey, and that he had been able to see and study many of the finest examples of 17th-century northern landscape art in prominent French collections and auction rooms in Paris. While Fragonard was undoubtedly drawn to northern art by personal inclination, the popular taste for Dutch landscape surely influenced his decision to paint his own landscapes in ‘le goût hollandais’.
In Fragonard’s bucolic image, a shepherd and herdsman sit on a rocky outcropping, while a bull, cows and sheep rest in the sun-dappled grass beyond. Overhead, dramatically articulated low-hanging clouds surge forward from behind a hill to dominate the great expanse of blue sky. Reminiscent of Ruisdael’s skies, these powerful configurations of thickly painted clouds echo the shaping of the land and silhouette of the trees with a decorative sophistication foreign to Ruisdael. The shifting play of grey shadows and warm, golden sunshine across the ground – studied from the Dutch masters – illuminates the sheep and cattle and jutting rock in pools of light. Far from a slavish imitation, Fragonard’s painting is instead a highly conscious and personal interpretation of northern art, with roots in both the artist’s close study of Dutch prototypes and his careful observation of nature.
Two autograph versions of Fragonard’s composition are known; the other version, from the collection of Roy Chalk, was offered for sale in these rooms, 15 January 1988, lot 129. The most significant difference between the two versions is the presence in the present painting of a dark cloud in the upper center of the composition. The close similarity between the two canvases makes distinguishing the earliest provenance of the two versions impossible to disentangle, and either could have been the painting in the Trouvard sale in 1779, the earliest known reference to the subject. It was commonplace for Fragonard to repeat his most successful ‘Dutch’ landscape compositions: in addition to the present example, Le Rocher (R.129 & 130), Pâtre Jouant de la Flûte (R.135 & 136), Le Tertre (R.147 & 148) and Paysage avec Jeune Homme (R.144 and a recently discovered canvas sold Christie’s, Paris, 20 June 2007, lot 59), are each known today in two autograph versions.
In Fragonard’s bucolic image, a shepherd and herdsman sit on a rocky outcropping, while a bull, cows and sheep rest in the sun-dappled grass beyond. Overhead, dramatically articulated low-hanging clouds surge forward from behind a hill to dominate the great expanse of blue sky. Reminiscent of Ruisdael’s skies, these powerful configurations of thickly painted clouds echo the shaping of the land and silhouette of the trees with a decorative sophistication foreign to Ruisdael. The shifting play of grey shadows and warm, golden sunshine across the ground – studied from the Dutch masters – illuminates the sheep and cattle and jutting rock in pools of light. Far from a slavish imitation, Fragonard’s painting is instead a highly conscious and personal interpretation of northern art, with roots in both the artist’s close study of Dutch prototypes and his careful observation of nature.
Two autograph versions of Fragonard’s composition are known; the other version, from the collection of Roy Chalk, was offered for sale in these rooms, 15 January 1988, lot 129. The most significant difference between the two versions is the presence in the present painting of a dark cloud in the upper center of the composition. The close similarity between the two canvases makes distinguishing the earliest provenance of the two versions impossible to disentangle, and either could have been the painting in the Trouvard sale in 1779, the earliest known reference to the subject. It was commonplace for Fragonard to repeat his most successful ‘Dutch’ landscape compositions: in addition to the present example, Le Rocher (R.129 & 130), Pâtre Jouant de la Flûte (R.135 & 136), Le Tertre (R.147 & 148) and Paysage avec Jeune Homme (R.144 and a recently discovered canvas sold Christie’s, Paris, 20 June 2007, lot 59), are each known today in two autograph versions.