The Swing by Jean-Honore Fragonard: The Garden That Kept a Secret (1767)
A pink shoe leaves her foot and does not come back. In Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s The Swing — painted about 1767–68 and catalogued at the Wallace Collection as Les hasards heureux de l’escarpolette — a young woman in rose silk flies through a dark garden while one man pulls the ropes and another waits in the bushes. The picture is small, 81 × 64.2 cm, and it has done more work for the idea of the French eighteenth century than canvases ten times its size. Quick facts Artist: Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806), born in Grasse Date: c. 1767–1768 Medium: Oil on canvas, 81 × 64.2 cm Collection: Wallace Collection, London (P430); displayed in The Study at Hertford House Notable fact: The first painter asked to make it refused; Fragonard took the job and left the bishop out Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing (Les hasards heureux de l’escarpolette), c. 1767–68. Oil on canvas. Wallace Collection, London. Image via Wikimedia Commons; print via the Sapiens Verbum print shop. 🖼️ Get this pai...