Towering, pale, celery-green trees frame a view of a lush park with about a dozen elegantly dressed, light-skinned men and women in this vertical landscape painting. The color palette is dominated by moss and lemon-lime green, golden yellow, and spruce blue. The men all wear jackets with long tails over knee-breeches, and their long hair is pulled back at the napes of their necks. The women wear long dresses with full skirts and hints of lace at the sleeves and bust, and their brown or white hair is pulled up. Nine of the men and women gather to our right on a stone terrace along the bottom edge of the painting. A man in butter yellow kneels in front of a woman wearing rose pink. Around this pair, people stand, kneel, sit, or recline wearing aquamarine blue, light turquoise, or ivory white. A man and woman sit on a bench to our left, a little removed from the larger group. This woman wears ruby red and the man leaning toward her wears topaz blue. Two people in the park beyond these groups are painted with only a few strokes of pale blue and white paint, and they look over a low hedge row lining the walking path. Beds of red flowers fill the lower corners of the composition in front of a statue of a woman to our left and a person, perhaps on a fountain, to our right. The grassy walking path and trees become more blue as they fade into the hazy distance between the tall tress to either side. The sky fades from pale blue along the horizon to a silvery blue, almost white, at the top.
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Towering, pale, celery-green trees frame a view of a lush park with about a dozen elegantly dressed, light-skinned men and women in this vertical landscape painting. The color palette is dominated by moss and lemon-lime green, golden yellow, and spruce blue. The men all wear jackets with long tails over knee-breeches, and their long hair is pulled back at the napes of their necks. The women wear long dresses with full skirts and hints of lace at the sleeves and bust, and their brown or white hair is pulled up. Nine of the men and women gather to our right on a stone terrace along the bottom edge of the painting. A man in butter yellow kneels in front of a woman wearing rose pink. Around this pair, people stand, kneel, sit, or recline wearing aquamarine blue, light turquoise, or ivory white. A man and woman sit on a bench to our left, a little removed from the larger group. This woman wears ruby red and the man leaning toward her wears topaz blue. Two people in the park beyond these groups are painted with only a few strokes of pale blue and white paint, and they look over a low hedge row lining the walking path. Beds of red flowers fill the lower corners of the composition in front of a statue of a woman to our left and a person, perhaps on a fountain, to our right. The grassy walking path and trees become more blue as they fade into the hazy distance between the tall tress to either side. The sky fades from pale blue along the horizon to a silvery blue, almost white, at the top.

National Gallery of Art · Painting

A Game of Hot Cockles

Jean Honoré Fragonard

Date
c. 1775/1780
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 115.5 x 91.5 cm (45 1/2 x 36 in.) framed: 144.5 x 121.3 cm (56 7/8 x 47 3/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Accession number
1946.7.6
Credit line
Samuel H. Kress Collection
Time span
1751 to 1775
Department
CF

Subjects and terms

  • painted surface
  • French
  • French Paintings of the Fifteenth through Eighteenth Century
  • amusement
  • genre
  • Rococo
  • Game
  • Hot Cockles
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. 60); 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/41.

NGA object ID 32684. 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.