The Fragonard Museum is exhibiting intimate scenes from the life of Jean-Honoré Fragonard along with paintings and photographs by travelling artists who tell stories of fascinating past worlds.
The Hôtel de Villeneuve, restored as an 18th-century mansion, houses permanent exhibitions on Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Grasse's most famous painter, and two further Grasse artists, Marguerite Gérard and Jean-Baptiste Mallet, but also more confidential artworks contributing to the museum's identity. Presently you can admire wanderlust-inducing exhibitions on travelling painters and photographers, and another on the "Grasse lad's" forgotten drawings bought last year at auction in Pau by the Costa family, who owns the Fragonard perfumery.
Humour and reminiscence
Some hidden facets are just waiting to be discovered, and Jean-Honoré Fragonard's light-hearted humour is among them! Nine of the painter's forgotten drawings and cartoons reveal unexpected traits of character; these realistic sketches of occurrences in his life express tenderness and amusement, consternation and self-derision. One notable scene light-heartedly recounts an incredible fall that caused him a badly strained ankle. To complete this "private view", two exhibitions pay tribute to explorer artists who from the 14th century accompanied merchants, soldiers and monks so as to draw inspiration from deep inside hitherto unknown lands. Paintings signed Lacroix de Marseille or Thomas Jones plus photos of a long-gone Russia by Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii show us a fantastic world, part Eastern part Western, in the unreal colours of the faraway lands into which these "great tourists" ventured.
Until December 31, 2014
Grasse, musée Fragonard 14 rue Jean Ossola -Tél. 04 93 36 02 07
By Alix Lerebours
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