Image source: Wikimedia Commons (Public domain). View source
Young Girl Reading
Jean-Honoré Fragonard · Rococo & Neoclassicism
- Artist
- Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806)
- Date
- c. 1769
- Dimensions
- 81.1 x 64.8 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., United States
Young Girl Reading shows a girl in a lemon-yellow dress with a lilac ribbon in her hair, sitting in profile against a large cushion, absorbed in a small book she holds in her right hand.
A closer look
Fragonard painted this 'fantasy figure' with extraordinary speed and freedom. The dress is made of broad, fluid strokes; the ruff and cuffs were scratched into the wet paint with the end of the brush. Her face, lit softly from the side, is calm and concentrated, and her elegant posture conveys the quiet pleasure of reading. Unlike many of Fragonard's playful, flirtatious scenes, this is an image of private, intellectual absorption.
More by Jean-Honoré Fragonard
In this gallery
Famous works elsewhere
- The Lock 1777
- The Stolen Kiss 1790
- Blind Man's Bluff 1760
- The See-Saw 1750
- The Bathers 1765
- The Chemise Withdrawn 1770