The Supper at Emmaus
1760/61
Medium
Black chalk on ivory laid paper, laid down on off-white laid paper
Dimensions
Primary support: 18.3 × 26.8 cm (7 1/4 × 10 9/16 in.); Secondary support: 19.6 × 28 cm (7 3/4 × 11 1/16 in.)
Classification
chalk
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
221187
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Known for Rococo fantasies, Jean-Honoré Fragonard brought his light touch to this copy of an Italian Baroque masterpiece. This drawing was made for the erstwhile cleric and avid printmaker Abbé de Saint-Non, who commissioned Fragonard to make copies after important Old Master paintings in Italy. The original painting (now in the National Gallery, London) hung in the Palazzo Borghese in Rome when the two artists visited it in late 1760 or early 1761. It depicts the moment when two of Jesus’s asto...
About the Artist
Jean Honoré Fragonard · 1732–1806
Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. Born in Grasse, he moved to Paris where he trained under Jean-Baptiste Chardin and François Boucher, winning the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1752. After studying in Italy alongside Hubert Robert, Fragonard returned to Paris in 1761 to fi...