The present Lot will be on view at Freeman's Upper East Side galleries located at 32 E. 67th St in New York, May 6-11, 10am-5pm weekdays; 11am-5pm Saturday, May 9; closed Sunday, May 10.

Provenance:

Tristan Cataroux

Sold: Drouot, Paris, January 22, 1988, Lot 72

Galerie Paul Prouté, Paris

Literature:

Alexandre Ananoff, L'oeuvre dessiné de Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Paris, 1970, vol. IV, p. 217, 2642a

Pierre Rosenberg, Panopticon italiano: Un diario di viaggio ritrovato 1759-1761, Rome, 2000, p. 397, no. 257

Lot Note:

From December 1756 to April 1761, Fragonard stayed in Rome with his friend and fellow artist, Jean-Claude Richard de Saint-Non (1727-1791) (known as the "Abbé de Saint-Non"), to study old master paintings and classical architecture. During his lengthy return trip to Paris, on July 7 and 8, 1761, Fragonard stopped in Modena to visit the art collection in the Estense Gallery, belonging to the Duke of Modena, Francesco III. It was here that he made studies of old master paintings, including the present work, thought to be after a painting by Titian at the time, though now considered a work by Polidoro Lanzani. The artist applied a dampened black sheet to the black chalk drawing and transferred the design, to which he continued to make embellishments and revisions in black chalk.