Entry
As with so many of Fragonard’s paintings, the original destination of
The similarities among the four paintings have often been noted, but whether they were intended as part of the same decorative scheme that also included another monumental garden scene, Fête at Saint-Cloud
The games of blindman’s buff and swinging have remained popular with children today, but horse and rider and hot cockles may be less familiar. Yet both were common in Fragonard’s time, and they appear with some frequency in works of art produced in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The genesis of Fragonard’s paintings is as mysterious as their original purpose. Although the landscapes and figures in Horse and Rider and Hot Cockles are among the artist’s most accomplished inventions, no preparatory studies for them exist.
As with Fragonard’s larger garden paintings, the possible meanings of these games have been a matter of debate among scholars. We may wonder whether Fragonard’s intention was to invest them with allegorical or emblematic meaning or whether he used them merely to enliven a pair of decorative landscapes. As Colin Eisler pointed out, Pieter Brueghel the Elder (?1525 / 1530 – 1569) included boys playing horse and rider in his painting Children’s Games, which has been interpreted as an evocation of the folly of youth.
In conceiving A Game of Horse and Rider and A Game of Hot Cockles, Fragonard clearly meant for the viewer to measure one painting against the other, and he invested the landscape settings with a greater significance than is apparent in Oudry’s tapestry designs. Each picture depicts a corner of a vast parkland, with figures playing in the foreground and a view deep into the center distance. With typical sophistication and wit, Fragonard placed the two amusements in settings that comment on and amplify the activities. As with Blindman’s Buff, The Swing, and Fête at Saint-Cloud, Fragonard contrasts two different styles of garden design popular in the eighteenth century — the picturesque and the formal — and populates them with suitable figures enjoying activities proper for their nature.
This text was previously published in Philip Conisbee et al., French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century, The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue (Washington, DC, 2009), 188–194.
Collection data may have been updated since the publication of the print volume. Additional light adaptations have been made for the presentation of this text online.
Richard Rand
January 1, 2009
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. 60); 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; gift 1946 to NGA.
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. 193.
- 1910
- Ausstellung von Werken französischer Kunst des XVIII. Jahrhunderts, Königliche Akademie der Künste, Berlin, 1910, no. 320 (no. 45 in French ed.).
- 1932
- Exhibition of French Art 1200-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1932, no. 211.
- 1946
- Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 771.
- 1987
- Fragonard, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1987-1988, no. 165.
- 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. 91, repro.
- 2014
- De Watteau à Fragonard. Les fête galantes, Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, 2014, no. 57, repro.
Technical Summary
Both A Game of Hot Cockles and
The lowest ground layer is red in both paintings, and a local white imprimatura layer may be present over the red ground. The lowest ground layer in both paintings appears to have a faint texture, possibly caused by agglomerations of large pigment particles or sand. The paint has been applied similarly in both paintings, in thin, overlying layers of opaque and glazed paints. The artist used different-sized brushes for different paint layers. The multiple layers that make up the paint film were allowed to dry between working sessions, and thinly painted forms and details can be seen through overlying glazes. The figures were created with color patches of an opaque, paste paint applied in fluid, rapid brushstrokes. The color patches are delineated occasionally with contour lines of a brown, black, or red glazed paint. Much of the paint texture is smooth, but there is brush texture in the skies and in the foregrounds. Infrared reflectography at 1.5 – 1.8 microns revealed a tree trunk extending through and below the brightly lit island in the left middle ground of A Game of Horse and Rider, indicating that the island may not have been part of the original design.
The paintings are in good condition. They are structurally secure, but they have been somewhat flattened by past linings. According to conservation records, Stephen Pichetto relined both paintings in 1943. He also removed a discolored varnish and restored the paintings at that time. There is evidence of moderate abrasion of the paint layers and some loss of glazes in the foliage in the foreground of A Game of Hot Cockles. A Game of Horse and Rider has no significant paint losses; there are only two small areas of damage in A Game of Hot Cockles. One area, which measures about 4 cm, is located in the upper left arm of the woman in blue to the right of center, and the other, a 2.5-cm area, is located in the top of the blue, middle-ground trees on the right. Between 2006 and 2007, both paintings were treated to remove the discolored varnish and inpaint applied in 1943.
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: 282.
- 1906
- Nolhac, Pierre de. J.-H. Fragonard. Paris, 1906: 159.
- 1944
- Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 124, color repro.
- 1944
- "Kress Makes Important Donation of French Painting to the Nation." Art Digest 18, no. 19 (1 August 1944): 5.
- 1944
- "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
- 1944
- "The Almanac: French Paintings Given to the National Gallery." The Magazine Antiques 46, no. 5 (November 1944): 288.
- 1945
- Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 168, repro.
- 1948
- Wildenstein and Company. French XVIII Century Paintings. New York, 1948: 4
- 1956
- Einstein, Lewis. "Looking at French Eighteenth Century Pictures in Washington." Gazette des Beaux-Arts. 6th ser., vol. 67, no. 1048-1049 (May-June 1956): 238-239, repro. 246.
- 1956
- 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: 369, repro.
- 1960
- Wildenstein, Georges. The Paintings of Fragonard. New York, 1960: no. 444
- 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. 469, 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: 331-332, fig. 294.
- 1984
- Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 341, no. 459, 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 253, 325-326, no. 341, repro.
- 1989
- Rosenberg, Pierre. Tout l'oeuvre peint de Fragonard. Paris, 1989: 106, no. 315, repro.
- 1990
- Sheriff, Mary D. Fragonard. Art and Eroticism. Chicago and London, 1990: 85-89, 117, 118, repro.
- 1996
- Timken Museum of Art. Timken Museum of Art: European works of art, American paintings, and Russian icons in the Putnam Foundation collection. San Diego, 1996: 154, repro. fig. 2.
- 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
- 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, 143.
- 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. 39, 188-194, color repro.