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Lot Essay
At the invitation of the fermier-général, Jacques-Onésyme Bergeret de Grancourt, Fragonard visited Italy on 5 October 1773. This, second trip to Italy came at a critical stage in Fragonard's career following a lapse in the artist's popularity in fashionable society. Bergeret was to carry the costs of the trip, and in return Fragonard would present him with the drawings that he produced, mainly of sites of particular interest, genre scenes, portraits and copies after old masters. The inscriptions at the bottom of each drawing, indicating the place and date, are thought to be in Bergeret's hand.
The party was in Naples and the surrounding area from 15 April 1774 until 12 June. Bergeret's diary shows that they visited the presqu'île of Posilipo, which separates the Bay of Naples from that of Baïa, on Monday 25 April, and again two days later. Very few drawings survive from these visits.
The drawings from this trip were generally executed from life in black chalk, with brown wash being added only when the artist returned home. A sheet showing a View from the Coast near Genoa, in the Musée de Besançon, is very similar in technique to the present drawing, P. Rosenberg, Fragonard, exhib. cat., Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 1988, no. 173, illustrated.
Eunice Williams has pointed out that a drawing attributed to Fragonard in the Forsyth-Wickes Collection, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, shows a study for the pleasure boat approaching the coast in the present drawing.
We are grateful to her for confirming the attribution.
The party was in Naples and the surrounding area from 15 April 1774 until 12 June. Bergeret's diary shows that they visited the presqu'île of Posilipo, which separates the Bay of Naples from that of Baïa, on Monday 25 April, and again two days later. Very few drawings survive from these visits.
The drawings from this trip were generally executed from life in black chalk, with brown wash being added only when the artist returned home. A sheet showing a View from the Coast near Genoa, in the Musée de Besançon, is very similar in technique to the present drawing, P. Rosenberg, Fragonard, exhib. cat., Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 1988, no. 173, illustrated.
Eunice Williams has pointed out that a drawing attributed to Fragonard in the Forsyth-Wickes Collection, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, shows a study for the pleasure boat approaching the coast in the present drawing.
We are grateful to her for confirming the attribution.