A Game of Horse and Rider

c. 1775/1780

Jean Honoré Fragonard

Painter, French, 1732 - 1806

In a lush, tree-lined park, filtered light falls across a group of about a dozen light-skinned people lounging and frolicking along the banks of a river in this vertical landscape painting. A man wearing a shell-pink jacket and pants and woman wearing a topaz-blue, full-skirted dress and rose-pink bonnet sit near each other in the lower left corner. Several younger boys pile up in a game where one person tries to ride on the back of another, to our right. They wear rolled-up pants, open-necked shirts, and some wear straw-colored hats. Tall aspens, with smooth greenish-white trunks and soft, golden leaves, are among the trees that line this placid river. A gnarled trunk twists against the cloudless blue sky above the revelers to our right. Other couples board a long, narrow boat at the riverbank in the distance.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 55

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 115 x 87.5 cm (45 1/4 x 34 7/16 in.)
    framed: 145.1 x 116.8 x 12.1 cm (57 1/8 x 46 x 4 3/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1946.7.5

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  French Paintings of the Fifteenth through Eighteenth Centuries: A Game of Horse and Rider, c. 1775/1780

A young woman draws on an oval surface with white chalk while three winged, baby-like putti gather nearby, all on a bank of pale pink clouds in this horizontal painting. The woman and putti have pale, rosy skin, flushed cheeks, and hazel-brown eyes. To our left, the woman reclines with her upper body propped up on her far elbow, which rests on a steel-blue cushion as her legs stretch out to our right. Her light brown hair is braided and wrapped across the top of her head. She wears a loose, seafoam-green robe over a billowing ivory-white garment that has slipped off the shoulder closer to us. A round paint palette with brushes sticking out of its thumb hole and a roll of blue and white paper sit in the lower left corner, behind the woman. The woman and the objects are on a red cloth. In front of the woman is a rounded surface, perhaps a canvas, on which she draws. She holds up a gold-colored stylus with her right hand, closer to us, with a pointed piece of white chalk in one end and black chalk in the other. The canvas is taller than her head, so the child-like putto she draws on it is life-sized. The three nude putti on the far side of the canvas have copper or golden-blond, curly hair, flushed, rounded cheeks, short wings in white or peacock blue, pudgy torsos, and dimpled limbs. One putto, presumably the one the woman draws, sits back on the bank of clouds with a carnation-pink sash across his chest. He pulls his chin back and looks at her from under his eyebrows. He holds a gold-colored torch with a pink flame in one hand, and the other hand rests near a cylindrical quiver of arrows. Another putto peeks around the side of the canvas, and the third stands and props the canvas up. That third putto holds up a wreath of laurel leaves up over the canvas, above the woman’s drawing hand. The bank of clouds is parchment-brown with muted pink and blue highlights against a vivid blue sky. The artist signed and dated the lower right, “F Boucher – 1765.”

Scholarly Series:  French Paintings of the Fifteenth through Eighteenth Centuries

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Possibly William Williams Hope [1802-1855], Rushton Hall, Northamptonshire, and Paris; possibly by gift to Madame Jenny Colon [1808-1842], Paris.[1] Emile [1800-1875] and Isaac [1806-1880] Péreire, Paris, by 1864; (Péreire sale, at their residence by Pillet and Petit, Paris, 6-9 March 1872, no. 61); Frédéric-Alexis-Louis Pillet-Will, comte Pillet [1837-1911], Paris, until at least 1910.[2] (Wildenstein & Co., Inc., Paris, New York, and London), by 1932;[3] Calouste Gulbenkian [1869-1955]; (Wildenstein & Co., Inc., Paris, New York, and London);[4] sold 1942 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[5] gift 1946 to NGA.
[1] For the Hope-Colon provenance, see W. Bürger, "Galerie de MM. Pereire," Gazette des Beaux-Arts ser. I, 16 (April 1864): 201.
[2] The painting was lent by Pillet-Will to an exhibition in Berlin in 1910.
[3] The painting was lent by Wildenstein to a 1932 exhibition in London.
[4] Georges Wildenstein's letter of 21 January 1952 to John Walker (NGA curatorial files) confirms Gulbenkian's ownership and the fact "that my father bought [it] back from him."
[5] See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/40.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1885

  • Exposition de tableaux, statues et objects d'art au profit de l'oeuvre des Orphelins d'Alsace-Lorraine, Salle des États au Louvre, Paris, 1885, no. 192, as Le Colin-Maillard.

1910

  • Ausstellung von Werken französischer Kunst des XVIII. Jahrhunderts, Königliche Akademie der Künste, Berlin, 1910, no. 317 (no. 44 in French ed.).

1932

  • Exhibition of French Art 1200-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1932, no. 183.

1946

  • Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 770.

1987

  • Fragonard, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1987-1988, no. 164.

1996

  • Das Capriccio als Kunstprinzip. Zur Vorgeschichte der Moderne von Arcimboldo und Callot bis Tiepolo und Goya: Malerei - Zeichnung - Graphik, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne; Kunsthaus Zürich; Palais Harrach, Vienna, 1996-1997, no. 92, repro.

Bibliography

1864

  • Bürger, W. "Galerie de MM. Pereire." Gazette des Beaux-Arts ser. I, 16 (April 1864): 201.

1885

  • Portalis, Roger. "Les peintures décoratives de Fragonard et les panneaux de Grasse." Gazette des Beaux-Arts ser. 2, 32 (1885): 483.

1889

  • Portalis, Roger. Honoré Fragonard, sa vie et son oeuvre. 2 vols. Paris, 1889: 82, 273.

1906

  • Nolhac, Pierre de. J.-H. Fragonard. Paris, 1906: 159.

1944

  • "Kress Makes Important Donation of French Painting to the Nation." Art Digest 18, no. 19 (1 August 1944): 5.

  • "One of the Greatest Donations of XVIIIth Century French Painting Ever Received by a Museum - The Kress Collection." The Illustrated London News 115, no. 2992 (26 August 1944):249, repro. 248.

  • "The Almanac: French Paintings Given to the National Gallery." The Magazine Antiques 46, no. 5 (November 1944): 288

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 79, repro. no. 76

1945

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 169, repro.

1948

  • Wildenstein and Company. French XVIII Century Paintings. New York, 1948: 4.

1952

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Great Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1952: 124, color repro.

1956

  • Einstein, Lewis. "Looking at French Eighteenth Century Pictures in Washington." Gazette des Beaux Arts 6th ser., 47, no. 1048-1049 (May-June 1956): 238-239, repro. 247.

  • Réau, Louis. Fragonard: sa vie et son oeuvre. Brussels, 1956: 158.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 368, repro.

1960

  • Wildenstein, Georges. The Paintings of Fragonard. New York, 1960: no. 443

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 51.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 43, repro.

1971

  • Watson, Francis. "Fragonard." Art News Annual 37 (1971): 86

1972

  • Mandel, Gabriele. L'Opera completa di Fragonard. Milan, 1972: no. 468, repro.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 130, repro.

1977

  • Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 331, fig. 293.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 338, no. 456, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 157, repro.

1987

  • Cuzin, Jean-Pierre. "Jean-Honoré Fragonard: Vie et oeuvre." Fribourg, 1987. English edition New York, 1988: 203, 206, fig. 252, 325-326, no. 340, repro.

1989

  • Rosenberg, Pierre. Tout l'oeuvre peint de Fragonard. Paris, 1989: 106, no. 314, repro.

1990

  • Sheriff, Mary D. Fragonard. Art and Eroticism. Chicago and London, 1990: 85-89, 117, 118, repro.

2004

  • Rosenberg, Pierre. "Fragonard, La Fête à Saint-Cloud, Louis-Pierre Marchal de Sainscy, et la Banque de France." In Place de Victoires: histoire, architecture, societé. Ed. Isabelle Dubois et. al. Paris, 2004: 254-257, repro.

2005

  • Baillio, Joseph, et al. The Arts of France from François Ier to Napoléon Ier. A Centennial Celebration of Wildenstein's Presence in New York. Exh. cat. Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York, 2005: 78 (not in the exhibition).

2006

  • Milam, Jennifer. Fragonard's Playful Paintings: Visual Games in Rococo Art. Manchester, 2006: 131, 141, 142, 161-163.

2009

  • Conisbee, Philip, et al. French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2009: no. 38, 188-194, color repro.

Inscriptions

On stretcher: written: "11623," crossed out and replaced with "11476." Encapsulated and attached to stretcher: five labels: (1) small, blue bordered label, torn, "74 (?) d"; (20 oval label with red type, "CHENUE / EMBALLEUR / 5, Rue de la Terrasse, PARIS" with a "5" in blue pencil; (3) blue inked stamp on paper, illegible; (4) typeset label with notations in iron gall ink, "DATE ----/ ARTIST FRAGONARD / SUBJECT CHEVAL FONDU / OWNER'S NAME WILDENSTEIN & CO. INC / ADDRESS ----; (5) black ink on red paper, "Rep. 67."

Wikidata ID

Q20178688

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