The Reader by Jean-Honore Fragonard

The Reader (Young Girl Reading) by Jean-Honore Fragonard, c. 1772, is a deftly painted oil on canvas portrait of a seated young girl reading a book. The brilliant colours and masterly wet-in-wet, alla prima oil technique reveal a tender profile portrait emerging from the warm canvas ground. 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.