Artist Name:
Alexandre-Evariste Fragonard
Nationality & Life Dates:
French, 1780 – 1850
Title:
Bradamante at Merlin's Tomb
Date:
ca. 1820
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
13 x 9 1/2 inches
Credit Line:
Purchase
Accession Number:
1983.70
On View - Stent Family Wing, Second Level, Gallery 204
The son of the famous Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Alexandre Évariste combined the Rococo pictoral effects used by his father with a Neoclassicism learned from his teacher, Jacques-Louis David. In a letter from July 8, 1983, this small painting has been cautiously identified by scholar Marianne Roland Michel as a scene from Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. The episode that may be depicted in this painting occurs in canto 3, verses 20 to 77, wherein the heroine Bradamante arrives at the tomb of the magician Merlin and a vision of her descendants is conjured by the sorceress Melissa. This work is imbued with a theatrical quality by the supernatural light and the sketchy application of paint.