Shepherdess – (Jean-Honoré Fragonard) Previous Next


Artist:

Date: 1750

Size: 118 x 161 cm

Museum: Milwaukee Art Museum (Milwaukee, United States)

Technique: Oil On Canvas

The lighthearted gallantry of Rococo master Jean-Honoré Fragonard often provides elegant dressing for a worldly lesson in courtship and love. The theme of the pastoral tryst offered just such an opportunity: an idyllic, bountiful natural setting filled with blooms, bowers, and willing maidens. Fragonard’s lovely shepherdess is the epitome of feminine beauty. She awaits the arrival of a young shepherd who has gone to retrieve a lost lamb. Resting barefoot on the ground and attended by a faithful member of her flock, she whiles away the minutes playfully weaving garlands, perhaps to adorn her lover. The amorous and often overtly naughty themes symbolically embedded within much 18th-century French genre painting made the canvases attractive to sophisticated aristocratic collectors.

This artwork is in the public domain.

Artist

Download

Click here to download

Permissions

Free for non commercial use. See below.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard – Most viewed artworks

Public domain

This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. However - you may not use this image for commercial purposes and you may not alter the image or remove the watermark.

This applies to the United States, Canada, the European Union and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years.


Note that a few countries have copyright terms longer than 70 years: Mexico has 100 years, Colombia has 80 years, and Guatemala and Samoa have 75 years. This image may not be in the public domain in these countries, which moreover do not implement the rule of the shorter term. Côte d'Ivoire has a general copyright term of 99 years and Honduras has 75 years, but they do implement that rule of the shorter term.