Provenance

duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

French

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In a deeply shadowed room, two women and several children are gathered at the center of this wide, oval painting, looking toward a young man and donkey who peer in over a half-door to our left. The people all have light skin, and all of the children have blond hair. Light coming into the darkened room falls on a young woman holding a baby at the center of the composition. The woman sits facing our left in profile, looking at or toward the baby with brown eyes and parted lips. She has a long, straight nose, flushed cheeks, and her brown hair is pulled back into a bun at the back of her head. She wears a low-cut, ivory-white bodice with puffy sleeves, a black sash tied around her waist, and a voluminous crimson-red skirt. She props the baby so the child stands braced on chubby legs against her lap as the woman supports the torso and backside. One of the baby’s hands reaches for the woman’s neck and the other for her forehead as the head twists back to look to our left. The child wears a white garment. Two more children rest near the woman, with one leaning back against the woman’s shins and the other sitting with a white dog at the woman’s side, closer to us. Both children wear brown, white, and teal blue. Behind this group, another woman, seen mostly silhouetted against the shadows, reaches back and braces another child who seems to sit on a box or chest. The fifth and final child stands at the head of the donkey who peeks in over the half-door to our left. Above the donkey, a young, cleanshaven man wearing a wide-brimmed hat and baggy coat leans into the room and looks toward the central woman, a smile on his lips. His features are cast into shadow by the light coming in behind him but he has dark hair and dark eyes. The room beyond the women and children is draped with a gray cloth, as if hung over a low beam. The upper regions of the room are swallowed in shadow.
Jean Honoré Fragonard, The Happy Family, c. 1775, oil on canvas, Timken Collection, 1960.6.12

The Happy Family

Jean Honoré Fragonard · c. 1775 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1960.6.12