Currently not on view
Angelica Appearing before Sacripante (Ariosto, Orlando Furioso I, 52-53),
ca. 1780–89
Jean-Honoré Fragonard, 1732–1806; born Grasse, France; died Paris, France
x1976-20
This large, airy drawing is one of more than 170 that Fragonard made during the 1780s as illustrations to Ludovico Ariosto’s sixteenth-century epic poem Orlando Furioso, in which intertwining subplots of chivalry and romance unfold against the backdrop of religious warfare between Christians and Saracens. In this early scene, the shimmering figure of Angelica, one of the main protagonists, emerges from a clearing in a forest, startling the Saracen knight Sacripante, who has been pursuing her. The interplay of black chalk, transparent layers of wash, and the reserved white of the paper creates a dynamic composition infused with energy and passion. Apparently not intended for publication, such drawings seem to have been made as ends in themselves.
Information
Title
Angelica Appearing before Sacripante (Ariosto, Orlando Furioso I, 52-53)
Dates
ca. 1780–89
Maker
Medium
Black chalk, brush and brown ink, brown and gray wash
Dimensions
39.8 x 24.7 cm (15 11/16 x 9 3/4 in.)
Credit Line
Given by friends of Professor Rensselaer W. Lee, Class of 1920, in his honor
Object Number
x1976-20
Culture
Type
Materials
Subject
Artist's family;
Hippolyte Walferdin;
1880, auctioned;
1880, purchased by Louis Roederer, Reims, France;
Purchased by Rosenbach, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Gifted to the Princeton University Art Museum
- Elizabeth Mongan, Philip Hofer and Jean Seznec, Fragonard drawings for Ariosto, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1945). , pl. 5
- Chronique des arts: supplément à la Gazette des beaux-arts, no. 1298 (Mar., 1977)., p. 91
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1976," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 36, no. 1 (1977): p. 28-40., p. 40
- Eunice Williams, Drawings by Fragonard in North American collections, (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1978). , no. 63 (illus.); opp. p. 7 (color illus.)
- Fragonard drawings for Orlando Furioso, (London: T. Agnew & Sons, 1978).
- "Sixteenth-to eighteenth-century French drawings from the permanent collection: a checklist of the exhibition," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 42, no. 1 (1983): p. 43-49., p. 49
- Barbara T. Ross, "Notes on selected French old master drawings from the permanent collection," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 42, no. 1 (1983): p. 4-42., p. 5 (illus.)
- Marie-Anne Dupuy-Vachey, Fragonard et le Roland furieux, (Paris: Les éditions de l’Amateur, 2003)., cat. no. 8; p. 46-47; p. 378 (illus.)
