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Fragonard, Jean-Honoré
(French, 1732-1806)
The Shepherdess
ca. 1750/52
Oil on canvas
46 3/4 x 63 5/8 in.
Bequest of Leon and Marion Kaumheimer
M1974.64

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The lighthearted gallantry of Rococo master Jean-Honoré Fragonard often provides elegant dressing for a worldly lesson in courtship and love.

The theme of the pastoral tryst offered just such an opportunity: an idyllic, bountiful natural setting filled with blooms, bowers, and willing maidens. Fragonard’s lovely shepherdess is the epitome of feminine beauty. She awaits the arrival of a young shepherd who has gone to retrieve a lost lamb. Resting barefoot on the ground and attended by a faithful member of her flock, she whiles away the minutes playfully weaving garlands, perhaps to adorn her lover.

The amorous and often overtly naughty themes symbolically embedded within much 18th-century French genre painting made the canvases attractive to sophisticated aristocratic collectors.

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