The Letter, or The Spanish Conversation
Jean Honoré Fragonard (French, 1732-1806)
c. 1778
- Medium
- Brush and brown ink and brush and brown wash, with graphite, on ivory laid paper
- Classification
- Drawing and Watercolor
- Dimensions
- 39.9 × 29 cm (15 3/4 × 11 7/16 in.)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- Margaret Day Blake Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s highly personal, powerful style emerged after periods of study with both François Boucher and Jean-Siméon Chardin, and over five years at the Académie de France in Rome. Entitled The Letter, or The Spanish Conversation (because of the man’s elegant attire—with a doublet of full sleeves and a wide, stiff neck ruff—a costume that was “in the Spanish mode”), this lively sheet depicts with wit and teasing ambiguity an intimate incident in an upper-class drawing room. The artist’s rapid, virtuoso draftsmanship evokes forms with what seems like a minimum of effort, and his powerful handling of brush and wash reflects his ability to capture the effects of light. The interplay between the drawing’s broad, free underdrawing and its shimmering veils of wash lend this work its charm and vivacity. The woman in this drawing is said to be Fragonard’s sister-in-law, the artist Marguerite Gérard.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
