About This Artwork

Jean Honoré Fragonard
French, 1732-1806

The Letter or The Spanish Conversation, c. 1778

Brush and brown ink and brush and brown wash, with graphite, on ivory laid paper
399 x 290 mm
Margaret Day Blake Collection, 1945.32

Jean-Honoré Fragonard's highly personal, powerful style emerged after periods of study with both François Boucher and Jean-Siméon Chardin, and over five years at the Académie de France in Rome. Entitled The Letter, or The Spanish Conversation (because of the man's elegant attire—with a doublet of full sleeves and a wide, stiff neck ruff—a costume that was "in the Spanish mode"), this lively sheet depicts with wit and teasing ambiguity an intimate incident in an upper-class drawing room. The artist's rapid, virtuoso draftsmanship evokes forms with what seems like a minimum of effort, and his powerful handling of brush and wash reflects his ability to capture the effects of light. The interplay between the drawing's broad, free underdrawing and its shimmering veils of wash lend this work its charm and vivacity. The woman in this drawing is said to be Fragonard's sister-in-law, the artist Marguerite Gérard.

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Paris, Pavillon de Marsan, "Fragonard," 1921, cat. 126.

London, Royal Academy of Arts, "French Art, 1200-1900," 1932, p. 395, cat. 808.

New York, Wildenstein and Company, "French Eighteenth Century Pastels, Watercolors, and Drawings from the David-Weill Collection," 1938, cat. 70.

The Art Institute of Chicago, "Drawings Old and New," 1946, p. 13-14, cat. 18 (ill. frontispiece), cat. by Carl O. Schniewind.

Cambridge, Mass., Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, "Seventy Master Drawings," 1948-1949, cat. 52.

The Art Institute of Chicago, "French Drawings: Masterpieces from Seven Centuries," 1955-1956, cat. 81.

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, "French Drawings in American Collections: Clouet to Matisse," 1958-1959, cat. 49; traveled to Paris, Musée de l’Orangerie and Rotterdam, Museum Boymans.

New York, Wildenstein and Company, "Master Drawings from The Art Institute of Chicago," October 17-November 30, 1963, n.p., cat. 60, pl. XX.

The Art Institute of Chicago, "A Quarter Century of Collecting: Drawings Given to The Art Institute of Chicago, 1944-1970 by Margaret Day Blake," April 28-June 7, 1970, n.p., cat. 22 (ill.).

The Art Institute of Chicago, "Selected Works of 18th Century French Art in the Collections of The Art Institute of Chicago," January 24-March 28, 1976, pp. 66-67, cat. 60 (ill.).

Paris, Musée du Louvre, "Dessins français de l’Art Institute de Chicago de Watteau à Picasso," October 15, 1976-January 17, 1977, n.p., cat. 18 (ill.).

Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Städtische Galerie im Städelschen Kunstinstitut, "Französische Zeichnungen aus dem Art Institute of Chicago," February 10-April 10, 1977, pp. 44-45, cat. 17 (ill.).

Washington, D.C., The National Gallery of Art, "Drawings by Fragonard in North American Collections," November 19, 1978-January 21, 1978, p. 114, cat. 43 (ill.), cat. by Eunice Williams; traveled to Cambridge, Mass., Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, February 16-April 1, 1979; and New York, the Frick Collection, April 20-June 3, 1979.

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art "Fragonard," February 2-May 8, 1988, p. 522, cat. 266 (ill.), cat. by Pierre Rosenberg.

Publication History

Roger Portalis, Fragonard (Paris, 1889), p. 300.

Société de Reproduction des Dessins de Maîtres (Paris, 1913), no. 5.

Georges Wildenstein, "L’Exposition Fragonard au Pavilon de Marsan," La Renaissance de l’Art Français (July 1921), p. 359 (ill.).

G. Henriot, Collection David-Weill III (Paris, 1928), p. 117 (ill.).

Carl Schniewind, "Chicago Reveals its Master Portfolio," Art News 45 (March 1946), p. 18 (ill.).

The Art Institute of Chicago Bulletin 40:3 (March 1946), pp. 26-28 (ill.).

"Additions to the Drawing Collection at The Art Institute of Chicago," The Connoisseur 118 (December 1946), p. 124 (ill.).

Hans Tietze, European Master Drawings in the United States (New York, 1947), pp. 204-205, no. 102 (ill.).

Agnes Mongan, One Hundred Master Drawings (Cambridge, 1949), p. 116 (ill.).

Regina Shoolman and Charles Slatkin, Six Centuries of French Master Drawings in America (New York, 1950), p. 90 (ill.).

Louis Reau, Fragonard, sa vie et son oeuvre (Brussels, 1956), p. 215 (ill.).

C. F. Foerster, J. H. Fragonard (Berlin), no. 10 (ill.).

Alexandre Ananoff, L’Oeuvre Dessiné de Jean-Honoré Fragonard I (Paris, 1961), p. 59, no. 74, fig. 32.

Harold Joachim and compiled by Sandra Haller Olsen,French Drawings and Sketchbooks of the Eighteenth Century (Chicago, 1977), pp. 26-27, no. 1E2.

James N. Wood and Sally Ruth May, The Art Institute of Chicago: The Essential Guide (Chicago, 1993), p. 211 (ill.).

Suzanne Folds McCullagh, "Never Dormant: Drawings in Chicago," Master Drawings (2000).

Treasures from The Art Institute of Chicago, selected by James N. Wood, with commentaries by Debra N. Mancoff (Chicago, 2000), p. 140 (ill.).

The Essential Guide (Chicago, 2009), p. 299 (ill.).

Ownership History

Sold, May 31, 1790, Anonymous sale, lot 323. Jean-Baptiste Pierre Lebrun (1748-1813), Paris; sold, April 11, 1791, lot 347. Saint; sold, May 4, 1846, lot 18 [according to New York 1988]. Duc Robert Montesquiou-Fezensac [Paris 1921]. David David-Weill (1871-1952), Paris, by 1913 [New York 1988]; consigned to Wildenstein and Company, New York, 1938 [New York 1938; Lynn H. Nicholas, The Rape of Europa (New York, 1994), p. 93]. Sold by Arnold Seligmann, Rey and Company, New York, to the Art Institute, 1945.