Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Study of a Girl on a Donkey

Jean-Honoré Fragonard
1732-1806

Study of a Girl on a Donkey

ca. 1759-1761
9 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches
Red chalk on paper.
2004.16

Gift of John M. Thayer.

Notes
This loose, angular drawing is a sheet from a dismembered sketchbook that dates from Fragonard's first Italian sojourn, ca. 1759-61. The so-called "sketchbook” emerged in 1932 when it was published by George S. Hellman, who had obtained it from Fragonard's heirs. It was subsequently dismembered in the 1960s by a trio of dealers and then partially reassembled when thirty bound sheets entered the collection of the Fogg Art Museum/Harvard University Art Museums collection in 1968 (inv. 1968.42:1-30). Like the present sheet, the Harvard sketches are swift and summary. Here the artist has recorded a familiar rustic theme: a young woman, her facial features denoted by abbreviated dots, rides a laden donkey.
Inscriptions/Markings
Watermark: Crown floating above a fleur-de-lis, over letters "GA".
Inscribed in graphite along right edge "41", which corresponds to the page numbering in the Harvard volume.
Associated names
Goddard, Paulette, former owner.
Thayer, John M. (John MacLane), 1944-2004, former owner.
Classification
Century Drawings
School
Department