Figure Studies (verso)
Jean-Honoré Fragonard (French, 1732–1806)
c. 1761
- Medium
- black chalk
- Classification
- Drawing
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 28.9 x 22.7 cm (11 3/8 x 8 15/16 in.)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Drawings
- Credit line
- Gift of Joseph F. McCrindle
- 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 Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Quick drawings could serve a variety of purposes, and it is not always clear today why an artist created a particular sketch. This one may record a painting Fragonard saw during a journey to Italy, or capture an idea he was considering for a painting of his own. Orpheus, identified by the lute, grasps for his love Eurydice as she is pulled down into Hades. The snarling animals near his feet may represent Cerberus, the multiheaded guard dog of the underworld.
