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Source Description
Fragonard used gardens as the setting for love and courtship in some of his most important works. One such scene, this drawing depicts a woman pleading for help from a statue of Eros, the god of love. He wears a blindfold, suggesting an uncertain outcome for the woman, as does a Cupid who indifferently leans on an orb nearby. Like other artists in 18th-century France, Fragonard was deeply influenced by historic imagery of the Garden of Love—a pastoral and idyllic contained landscape. He revisited the specific image seen here multiple times, in two oil paintings (Musée du Louvre and private collection, New York) and another drawing (Princeton University Art Museum).
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
123431
label
Invocation to Love
core
obj
dtoType
drawing
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
123431
contentType
drawing
title
Invocation to Love
description
Fragonard used gardens as the setting for love and courtship in some of his most important works. One such scene, this drawing depicts a woman pleading for help from a statue of Eros, the god of love. He wears a blindfold, suggesting an uncertain outcome for the woman, as does a Cupid who indifferently leans on an orb nearby. Like other artists in 18th-century France, Fragonard was deeply influenced by historic imagery of the Garden of Love—a pastoral and idyllic contained landscape. He revisited the specific image seen here multiple times, in two oil paintings (Musée du Louvre and private collection, New York) and another drawing (Princeton University Art Museum).
date
c. 1781
rights
CC0
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
wikidata
Q60760332
creators
2002
genreSpecific
Drawing
imageCount
1
source
import
dimensionsRaw
Sheet: 33.5 x 41.6 cm (13 3/16 x 16 3/8 in.); Secondary Support: 37.6 x 47.8 cm (14 13/16 x 18 13/16 in.)
cul
France, 18th century
accession
1943.657
Source extras
tec
Brush and brown wash with graphite squaring lines and underdrawing on cream laid paper
tombstone
Invocation to Love, c. 1781. Jean-Honoré Fragonard (French, 1732–1806). Brush and brown wash with graphite squaring lines and underdrawing on cream laid paper; sheet: 33.5 x 41.6 cm (13 3/16 x 16 3/8 in.); secondary support: 37.6 x 47.8 cm (14 13/16 x 18 13/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Grace Rainey Rogers Fund, 1943.657
supportMaterials
description
cream(3) laid paper, laid down on board (mount by François Renaud, second half of 18th Century)
collection
DR - French
inscriptions
inscription
Secondary support, lower right, in graphite: 62 [L?]3
inscription
verso of secondary support, center left, in graphite: Salon
didYouKnow
This drawing contains squaring—a grid underlying the image—suggesting it's a smaller drawn replica of a related oil painting.
citations
citation
<em>Catalogue des tableaux et dessins précieux qui composent le cabinet de M. de Sireul</em>. Paris: Chez M. Boileau, 1791.
page_number
Mentioned: no. 241
citation
Portalis, Roger. <em>Honoré Fragonard, sa vie et son oeuvre</em>. Paris: J. Rothschild, 1889.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 305
citation
<em>Notable French Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, Paintings and Drawings...Property of the Estate of the Late Grace Rainey Rogers</em>. New York: Parke-Bernet Galleries, 1943.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 22; reproduced: plate 46
citation
Francis, Henry S. "A Drawing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard." <em>Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art</em> 32, no. 6 (June 1945): 88, 91.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 88; Reproduced: p. 91
citation
<em>The Eighteenth Century: Art of France and England</em>. Exh. Cat. Montreal: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1950.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 15
citation
The Cleveland Museum of Art. <em>The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook.</em> Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
page_number
Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 590
citation
<em>French Drawings from American Collections: Clouet to Matisse</em>. Exh. Cat. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1959. (also published in French and Dutch)
page_number
Mentioned: no. 51; Reproduced: plate 67
citation
<em>French Masters: Rococo to Romanticism</em>. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: UCLA Art Galleries, 1961.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: no. 46
citation
Ananoff, Alexandre. <em>L'oeuvre dessiné de Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806): catalogue raisonné.</em> Paris: F. de Nobele, 1961.
page_number
Mentioned: vol. 4, p. 154, no. 2422; Reproduced: fig. 612
citation
Vermeule, Cornelius. <em>European Art and the Classical Past</em>. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964.
page_number
Mentioned: pp. 129-130; Reproduced: no. 108
citation
The Cleveland Museum of Art. <em>Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966</em>. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
page_number
Reproduced: p. 141
citation
Watrous, James. <em>The Craft of Old-Master Drawings</em>. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967.
page_number
Mentioned: pp. 80-82; Reproduced: p. 81
citation
<em>The Elsa Durand Mower Collection of French and Italian Drawings</em>. Exh. Cat. Princeton: Art Museum, Princeton University, 1968.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: no. 7
citation
The Cleveland Museum of Art. <em>Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969</em>. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.
page_number
Reproduced: p. 141
citation
"Fragonard." <em>Praeger Encyclopedia of Art</em>. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971.
page_number
Reproduced: p. 703
citation
Rosenberg, Pierre. <em>French Master Drawings of the 17th & 18th Centuries in North American Collections</em>. Translated by Catherine Johnston. Exh. Cat. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1972.
page_number
Mentioned: no. 50
citation
<em>Rubenism</em>. Exh. Cat. Providence: Bell Gallery, Brown University, 1975.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: no. 56
citation
The Cleveland Museum of Art. <em>Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978</em>. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.
page_number
Reproduced: p. 186
citation
Williams, Eunice. <em>Drawings by Fragonard in North American Collections</em>. Exh. Cat. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1978.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: no. 50
citation
Williams, Eunice. "Rescuing Fragonard from 'a Kind of Limbo.'" <em>Artnews</em> 78, no. 5 (May 1979): 74-78.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: p. 75
citation
Leach, Mark Carter. "The Literary and Emblematic Activity of Herman Hugo, S.J. (1588-1629)." PhD diss., University of Delaware, 1979.
page_number
Mentioned: pp. 215-216, 379; Reproduced: fig. 77
citation
Russell, John. "A Fragonard Festival at the Frick." <em>New York Times Magazine </em>(April 15, 1979): 29-31.
page_number
Reproduced: p. 29
citation
Sutton, Denys. <em>Fragonard</em>. Exh. Cat. Tokyo: National Museum of Western Art, 1980.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: no. 156
citation
Ross, Barbara T. "Notes on Selected French Old Master Drawings from the Permanent Collection." <em>Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University</em> 42, no. 1 (1983): 4-42.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 18
citation
O'Neill, Mary. <em>Les Peintures de l'école française des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles</em>. Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans, 1986.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 63, under no. 55
citation
Rosenberg, Pierre. <em>Fragonard</em>. Exh. Cat. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: no. 282
citation
Cuzin, Jean-Pierre. <em>Jean-Honoré Fragonard: Life and Work, Complete Catalogue of the Oil Paintings. </em>New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988.
page_number
Reproduced: p. 211
citation
Ashton, Dore. <em>Fragonard in the Universe of Painting</em>. Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 1988.
page_number
Mentioned: pp. 217-218
citation
Campbell, Richard J. and Victor Carlson. <em>Visions of Antiquity: Neoclassical Figure Drawing</em>. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1993,
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: no. 22
citation
DeGrazia, Diane, and Carter E. Foster. <em>Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art</em>. Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 4, pp. 122-123, no. 47, 289-290; Reproduced: p. 123
citation
De Grazia, Diana. "The Evolution of a Collection: Drawings in Cleveland." <em>Master Drawings </em>38, no. 3 (Fall 2000).
page_number
Mentioned: p. 252; Reproduced: fig. 2
citation
Molotiu, Andrei. <em>Fragonard's Allegories of Love</em>. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Getty Museum, 2007.
page_number
Mentioned: pp. 29-37; Reproduced: p. 32
citation
"Consuming Passion: Fragonard's Allegories of Love." <em>Journal of the Print World</em> (Winter 2008): 32.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: p. 32
citation
Dupuy-Vachey, Marie-Anne. "Every Possible Combination: Between Inspiration and Finish in Fragonard's Oeuvre." In <em>Fragonard: Drawing Triumphant: Works from New York Collections</em>. Perrin Stein, et. al., 15-46. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 34, p. 273 no. 65; Reproduced: p. 36, fig. 32
catalogueRaisonne
Ananoff 2422
creditline
Grace Rainey Rogers Fund
updatedAt
2026-05-29 06:21:02.367000
sourceId
123431
dept
Drawings
coll
DR - French
med
Brush and brown wash with graphite squaring lines and underdrawing on cream laid paper
creatorTags
male
thumbnail_url
image_url
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
4368a1c0ba4c06e6