Fountain of Love by Jean-Honore Fragonard Postcard

The Fountain of Love by Jean-Honore Fragonard, c. 1785, is an oil painting on canvas depicting Cupid-like putti borne on clouds offering a golden chalice drinking bowl to a pair of classically draped figures. Man and woman rush swiftly forward to drink from the waters of the flowing, mythological fountain, behind them a dark, shadowed forest landscape. Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) was a late Rococo painter of the French Ancien Régime whose works were distinguished by painterly facility and exuberance. Originally a pupil of Chardin, Fragonard produced a large number of works until the growing fashion of neo-classicism and the French Revolution forced him to flee into obscurity. Fragonard’s reputation revived in the late 19th century, when his sense of colour, relaxed hedonistic subject matter and painterly brushwork inspired new generations of the Impressionists such as Renoir.