The Fragonard Room is the setting for an ensemble of canvases by Fragonard and a remarkable group of French furniture of the eighteenth century. Four of these canvases — The Pursuit, The Meeting, The Lover Crowned, and Love Letters — were commissioned by Madame Du Barry, mistress of Louis XV, for a new pavilion in the garden of her château at Louveciennes. Upon their completion they were rejected in favor of a series commissioned from Joseph-Marie Vien. In 1790 Fragonard brought the paintings to his native Grasse and installed them in his cousin’s house, along with two additional large panels, four overdoors, and four slender panels of hollyhocks (three of which now hang in the Music Room). These masterpieces of rococo painting decorated the London residence of J. Pierpont Morgan before Mr. Frick acquired them.
no comments yet 
subscribe to RSS feed
find SundayArts on Facebook
