Rococo

Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Young Girl Reading

c. 1769

Oil on canvas, 31 15/16 × 25 1/2 in. National Gallery of Art, Washington

One of the fantasy figures, yet turned away and absorbed in her book: the paint is put down fast and left showing.

Look at

• Long loaded strokes run down the yellow sleeve, across the pillow and over the cushion, none of them blended.
• The shadows in the ruff are scratched into the wet white paint, line drawn with the brush handle rather than painted.
• A single goldenrod yellow against a grey-brown wall and a lilac-pink pillow: three colours carry the picture.

• Imaging in 2013–15 confirmed an earlier head underneath, a woman facing outward in a feathered headdress, a pose that ties the picture to the series.
• Given to the National Gallery in 1961 by Ailsa Mellon Bruce in memory of her father; a discoloured varnish was removed in 1985.

Fantasy figures

a group of half-length figures in masquerade dress and dramatic poses that Fragonard painted about 1769.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · CC0