Study of a seated man gesturing

Although this drawing has often been related to the figure of Franklin in Fragonard’s drawing of Au génie de Franklin now in the White House in Washington (A. Ananoff, op. cit., I, no. 450, fig. 156) which was etched by Marguérite Gérard in 1778 (exh. cat. Fragonard, Paris, Grand Palais, and New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987-88, no. 240), it seems to date from earlier in the artist’s career. It can be compared to a few other red chalk studies of draped male figures which are generally dated to the years 1758-61 when Fragonard was a ‘pensionnaire’ at the Académie de France in Rome (J.-P. Cuzin, Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Life and Work. Complete Catalogue of the Oil Paintings, New York, 1988, pp. 42-5, figs. 45-50). The drawing is especially close to two other studies of Seated draped figures, one in a private collection (Cuzin, op. cit., p. 42, fig. 46), the other in the Louvre (exh. cat. Fragonard, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 2003-04, no. 1). The three drawings show similar treatment of the drapery, heads, hands and feet.

This type of drawing was made in the studio before a life model. The position of the left hand in the present drawing alludes to the rope that the model usually held in order to retain the pose.

The drawing was acquired in 1922, at the Bourgarel sale, by Sacha Guitry (1885-1955), one of the greatest French actors and playwrights of the first half of the 20th Century. Guitry assembled a fine collection of drawings. He reproduced a few of them adorning the walls of his apartment in his book Cent merveilles published in 1954.

We are grateful to Eunice Williams and Marie-Anne Dupuy-Vachey for confirming the attribution of the drawing and their assistance cataloguing it.