Astolfo Sails off with Andronica and Sofrosina

Jean-Honoré FragonardWW-1780-119059

1780·Black chalk, with pen and brush and brown ink and brush and brown wash, on off-white laid paper·39.3 × 26.7 cm (15 1/2 × 10 9/16 in.)

<p>This is one of Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s 179 drawings illustrating scenes from Ludovico Ariosto’s epic poem Orlando furioso (The Frenzy of Orlando), first published in 1532. The English knight Astolfo, in armor at left in the ship’s bow, has left the island of the enchantress Alcina. In this scene, he sails home escorted by Andronica and Sofrosina, who represent the virtues of Fortitude and Temperance. Sofrosina waves her wand, directing the wind, while the angelic putti at the ship’s stern advance it with their breath.</p> <p>Fragonard’s line—as frenzied as Orlando—vividly conveys the turbulent elements of wind and sea as the rocking ship sails swiftly from right to left and out of the picture.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1780
Medium: Black chalk, with pen and brush and brown ink and brush and brown wash, on off-white laid paper
Dimensions: 39.3 × 26.7 cm (15 1/2 × 10 9/16 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Artist

Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Painting

Jean-Honoré Fragonard was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific artists active in the last decades of the Ancien Régime, Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings, of which only five are dated. Among his most popular works are genre paintings conveying an atmosphere of intimacy and veiled eroticism.

Grasse, France

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