Adoration Of The Magi. French School Of The 18th Century, Circle Of Jean-honoré Fragonard.

Oil on oak panel. French “neobaroque” school from the second half of the 18th century.
Directly inspired by a composition by Luca Giordano now kept at the Fundacion Casa Ducal de Medinaceli in Seville, our painting offers the eye a scene in which light plays a central role. As if installed on a theater stage from which powerful lighting emerges, our Holy Family welcomes the royal travelers accompanied by their suites coming to pay homage to the Child. Beyond a skillfully orchestrated staging, the pictorial ease demonstrated by our painter delights: the colors are vibrant, the touch is swirling, the brush is agile and the strong impasto amplify the luminous effects. Charles-Nicolas Cochin, artistic advisor to King Louis Thus, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Jean-Baptiste Hutin, Louis Lagrenée, Hubert Robert and Gabriel-François Doyen took advantage of a stay in Naples to discover the art of Luca Giordano. And in the years 1760/61, the Abbot of Saint-Non, protector and main sponsor of Fragonard, systematically made him copy the works of Giordano. Could our painting belong to this corpus? It is Guillaume Faroult, art historian and chief curator in the paintings department of the Louvre Museum, who proposes the notion of “neobaroque” to describe the production of these artists. The works of these French painters have in fact a “strongly colored and impasto style, with powerful luminous contrasts”, evoking the art of Luca Giordano. The High Priest Coresus sacrifices himself to save Callirhoé, painted in 1765 by Fragonard and kept in the Louvre Museum, is a perfect illustration of this.

Our Adoration of the Magi is highlighted by an 18th century frame with clean lines in gilded wood and yellow Salvator Rosa rechampi.
Dimensions: 35 x 46 cm – 53 x 62 cm with the frame

Biography
Jean-Honoré Fragonard (Grasse 1732 – Paris 1806) moved to Paris with his family in 1738 where he demonstrated early artistic inclinations. Thus he was apprenticed to François Boucher at the age of fourteen after a brief stint in the workshop of Jean Siméon Chardin. In 1752, he won the Grand Prize of the Royal Academy of Painting (Prix de Rome) with his Jeroboam sacrificing to idols. A resident of the Palazzo Mancini (French Academy in Rome) from 1756 to 1761, he did not adhere to the anticomania advocated by neo-classicism and developed a personal taste which led him towards the Italian Baroque painters of the previous century. With a fluid touch, he then developed a rapid art (fa' presto) which exudes great naturalness. During his stay at the Academy, he met Jean-Baptiste Greuze and struck up a friendship with Hubert Robert. Although destined to shine in history painting, he was touched by the feeling of nature and began a charming career where libertinism held a central place. The Goncourt brothers, in the Gazette des beaux-arts of 1865, said of him “that he went further than anyone in this lively painting which captures the impression of things and throws it onto the canvas like an instantaneous image” ( Gazette des beaux-arts, 1865).

Bibliography
- WILDESTEIN Daniel and MANDEL Gabriele, L'opera completa di Fragonard, Rizzoli Ed. 1972
- CUZIN Jean-Pierre, Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Life and work. Complete catalog of paintings. Ed. Herscher 1987.
- BAILEY Colin B., CONISBEE Philip, In the time of Watteau, Chardin and Fragonard, Yale University Press 2009.
- Collective under the direction of CAUSA Stefano, Luca Giordano. The triumph of Neapolitan painting, Catalog of the exhibition at the Petit Palais de Paris, Paris Musées 2019
- HILAIRE Michel, SPINOSA Nicola, The golden age of painting in Naples from Ribera to Giodano, catalog of the exhibition at the museum Fabre de Montpellier, Lienard Ed. 2015