In about 1769, Jean Honoré Fragonard (French, 1732 - 1806) painted a group of works known today as his fantasy figures: vibrant canvases showing individual models garbed in fancy dress and rendered in notably loose brushwork and bright colors. Among the most beloved works in his oeuvre, these pictures are also the most mysterious and have therefore prompted the most debate—produced for unknown reasons, perhaps representing real individuals, perhaps not.
The Gallery’s Young Girl Reading—a representation of a demure model in a lemon-yellow dress seated at a window ledge, a book in one upraised hand—has always been loosely associated with the fantasy figures on formal terms. On the one hand, compelling evidence supported a connection between the two. The dimensions of the Gallery’s picture (approximately 81 × 65 cm) are identical, or nearly so, to those of the fantasy figures. Its palette, dominated by bold yellow, mauve, and rose, recalls their coloring; its energetic, gestural brushwork reappears throughout the canvases; its costume, with its elaborate collar, evokes the elegant masquerade dress of the other models. Yet on the other, Young Girl Reading retreats resolutely into her book, appearing remote and absorbed, whereas the other fantasy figures are frontally turned toward the viewer.
In 2012, researchers discovered a previously unknown drawing by Fragonard that included sketches of 18 paintings, many recognizable as known fantasy figures. The drawing also included a sketch corresponding to Young Girl Reading, thereby conclusively establishing a relationship between this painting and the fantasy figures. This became the impetus for a new scholarly evaluation of the Gallery’s painting: a long-term project culminating with an exhibition, Fragonard: The Fantasy Figures (October–December 2017).
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