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In a lush, tree-lined park, filtered light falls across a group of about a dozen light-skinned people lounging and frolicking along the banks of a river in this vertical landscape painting. A man wearing a shell-pink jacket and pants and woman wearing a topaz-blue, full-skirted dress and rose-pink bonnet sit near each other in the lower left corner. Several younger boys pile up in a game where one person tries to ride on the back of another, to our right. They wear rolled-up pants, open-necked shirts, and some wear straw-colored hats. Tall aspens, with smooth greenish-white trunks and soft, golden leaves, are among the trees that line this placid river. A gnarled trunk twists against the cloudless blue sky above the revelers to our right. Other couples board a long, narrow boat at the riverbank in the distance.
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In a lush, tree-lined park, filtered light falls across a group of about a dozen light-skinned people lounging and frolicking along the banks of a river in this vertical landscape painting. A man wearing a shell-pink jacket and pants and woman wearing a topaz-blue, full-skirted dress and rose-pink bonnet sit near each other in the lower left corner. Several younger boys pile up in a game where one person tries to ride on the back of another, to our right. They wear rolled-up pants, open-necked shirts, and some wear straw-colored hats. Tall aspens, with smooth greenish-white trunks and soft, golden leaves, are among the trees that line this placid river. A gnarled trunk twists against the cloudless blue sky above the revelers to our right. Other couples board a long, narrow boat at the riverbank in the distance.

National Gallery of Art · Painting

A Game of Horse and Rider

Jean Honoré Fragonard

Date
c. 1775/1780
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 115 x 87.5 cm (45 1/4 x 34 7/16 in.) framed: 145.1 x 116.8 x 12.1 cm (57 1/8 x 46 x 4 3/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Accession number
1946.7.5
Credit line
Samuel H. Kress Collection
Time span
1751 to 1775
Department
CF
Original NGA record Wikidata

Subjects and terms

  • painted surface
  • French
  • French Paintings of the Fifteenth through Eighteenth Century
  • amusement
  • genre
  • Rococo
  • Game
  • Horse and Rider
Provenance

Possibly William Williams Hope [1802-1855], Rushton Hall, Northamptonshire, and Paris; possibly by gift to Madame Jenny Colon [1808-1842], Paris.[1] Emile [1800-1875] and Isaac [1806-1880] Péreire, Paris, by 1864; (Péreire sale, at their residence by Pillet and Petit, Paris, 6-9 March 1872, no. 61); Frédéric-Alexis-Louis Pillet-Will, comte Pillet [1837-1911], Paris, until at least 1910.[2] (Wildenstein & Co., Inc., Paris, New York, and London), by 1932;[3] Calouste Gulbenkian [1869-1955]; (Wildenstein & Co., Inc., Paris, New York, and London);[4] sold 1942 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[5] gift 1946 to NGA. [1] For the Hope-Colon provenance, see W. Bürger, "Galerie de MM. Pereire," _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_ ser. I, 16 (April 1864): 201. [2] The painting was lent by Pillet-Will to an exhibition in Berlin in 1910. [3] The painting was lent by Wildenstein to a 1932 exhibition in London. [4] Georges Wildenstein's letter of 21 January 1952 to John Walker (NGA curatorial files) confirms Gulbenkian's ownership and the fact "that my father bought [it] back from him." [5] See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/40.

NGA object ID 32683. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.