Invocation to Love

After studying with Chardin and Boucher in Paris, and with Natoire at the Académie de France in Rome, Fragonard left the expected path of official patronage to work for private collectors, who admired the “fire” and “genius” of his exuberant, fluid brushwork. This quality is conveyed in his freely executed landscapes, genre scenes, and amorous allegories, such as this one. In a lush outdoor setting, a young woman swathed in billowing drapery hurls herself desperately before a statue of Eros, the god of love, whose blindfold conveys indifference to her plight. While the scene is distinctly romantic in character, the references to antiquity, including the figure’s sandals and her cameo-like profile, indicate Fragonard’s adaptation to the emerging neoclassical style in late eighteenth-century France.