Jean‐Honoré Fragonard 1732–1806
NG 6445 
Psyche showing her Sisters her Gifts from Cupid

Humphrey Wine, 2018

Extracted from:

Humphrey Wine, The Eighteenth Century French Paintings (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2018).
Humphrey Wine and Virginia Napoleone, Former Owners of the Eighteenth‐Century French Paintings in the National Gallery: Appendix to ‘The National Gallery Catalogues: The Eighteenth‐Century French Paintings’ (London: National Gallery Company, 2018).

1753

Oil on canvas, 168.5 × 192.7 cm

Provenance

Collection of Denis‐Pierre‐Jean Papillon de La Ferté (1727–1794); confiscated from his estate in 1794 following his execution, but restituted in 1795;¹ Papillon de La Ferté (deceased) sale, Lebrun, Landais C.P., Paris, 20 February 1797, lot 100 (149 francs 19 to an unknown buyer);² Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847–1929);³ sold on behalf of the executors of Harry Mayer Archibald Primrose, 6th Earl of Rosebery (1882–1974) and his family, Sotheby Parke Bernet & Co., Mentmore, Buckinghamshire, 25 May 1977, no. 2422 (£8,000 plus 10 per cent buyer’s premium to David Carritt Ltd as by Carle Vanloo);⁴ bought by the National Gallery in 1978 for £495,000.⁵

Exhibitions

Versailles 1754 (2); London 1978a (20; withdrawn from exhibition on purchase by the Gallery);⁶ Tokyo 1980 (23); London 1986–7 (25); Paris and New York 1987–8 (9); London 2002 (36); Bristol, Newcastle and London 2003; Barcelona 2006–7 (3); Paris 2015–16 (5).

Related Works

Roger Portalis and Louis Réau incorrectly mention an engraving by [Henri] Gérard after NG 6445.⁷

Technical Notes

Quite worn throughout, especially the figures at the left. There is a horizontal tear some 24 cm long above the head of the woman dressing Psyche’s hair, some small losses nearby and in the figure of Psyche, other small scattered losses mainly near the top and bottom of the picture, and an area of canvas about 9 × 2 cm in the bottom left corner has been replaced with a patch. There are substantial drying cracks in the lower right quadrant.

NG 6445 is on two pieces of fine plain‐weave canvas joined by a horizontal seam about 35 cm from the top. Comparing the current canvas size with that given for the picture in the 1797 Papillon de La Ferté sale, it has been cut down at top by some 26.4 cm and at left by some 34.7 cm, as both the present composition and the absence of cusping along the top and left edges confirms.⁸ The canvas is affixed to a nineteenth‐century stretcher (marked ‘2422’ in white chalk at bottom left) and has a nineteenth‐century lining which has caused some damage. The painting was last cleaned and restored in 1979.⁹

There are numerous pentimenti revealed by the increasing transparency of the paint: there was originally a large lidded urn between the figure of Envy and the columns at the right; there was a putto flying upside down to the right of the rightmost column. Other pentimenti are to the leftmost nymph’s right shoulder, and just above and to the left of the arm of Psyche’s chair. These and other pentimenti show in both X‐radiograph and infrared reflectography (fig. 1). Both show that the flowers at top right extended somewhat further towards the left, there was more drapery where the shield is now, and that just below the basket of flowers held by the figure at bottom right was some object, perhaps a wine jar, which Fragonard painted twice before painting over it. This item is clearly shown by the infrared reflectogram to have been a large jar lying on its side in the brass basin. The basin itself originally had upturned handles and what now appears to the naked eye as the ghostly remains of possibly another handle facing the viewer once supported an oval medallion. The drapery to the left of the quiver was adjusted to reveal more of it. In addition to changes, infrared reflectography revealed some probable underdrawing in the architecture above Psyche’s head, and in the head and arm of the figure dressing Psyche’s hair, the back of the head of the figure at bottom right, and at the bottom of the cushion at Psyche’s feet.

Analysis of the paint media has shown the use of linseed oil in a sample of red paint and in a sample of white paint, and, less usually at this period, walnut oil, but too few samples were examined to draw general conclusions regarding the use of the two oils.¹⁰

Discussion

On 20 May 1753 Fragonard was admitted as a pupil at the École royale des élèves protégés, then under the direction of Carle Vanloo. In addition to painting or sculpting, and to drawing after the Antique and from life, the École’s six pupils, whether painters or sculptors, were expected to study the classics, including the works of Homer, Virgil, Ovid ‘et le reste des auteurs qui ont écrit sur la Fable’.¹¹ Each year from 1750 until the practice ceased in 1755 pupils were required to execute a work to show the king at Versailles.¹² For students of painting, its subject was to be derived from the Bible, ancient history or poetry. Unlike in the competition for the Prix de Rome, for which each competitor executed a work based on the same subject, in practice each pupil at the École showed a work based on a different one. Indeed, during the six years of these exhibitions no painting subject was ever repeated, from which one may suppose that the choice for each pupil was at least approved, if not directed, by Vanloo. According to the duc de Luynes, on 4 March 1754 M. de Vandières (later created the marquis de Marigny), brother of Mme de Pompadour and the Directeur des Bâtiments du Roi, presented to Louis XV the paintings and sculptures made by the pupils during 1753. Among these was ‘Psyché montre à ses soeurs les présents qu’elle a reçus de l’Amour, par Fragonard’.¹³

The ultimate literary source for Fragonard’s subject was Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (also known as The Golden Ass), Book V: 7–10: after welcoming her two sisters into Cupid’s palace, Psyche showed them its riches, ‘with the result that, [page 206] glutted with the abundant plenty of this truly heavenly wealth, they began to nourish envy deep in their hearts. Then Psyche had Zephyr transport her sisters home after she had loaded them with wrought gold and jewelled necklaces.’ Once home one of the sisters bitterly questioned why Psyche, ‘the last product of our mother’s weary womb, [had] acquired all that wealth and a god for a husband … Did you see, sister, how much jewellery was lying around in her house, and how fine it was? Did you see those shining clothes and sparkling gems, and all that gold under foot everywhere?’, and the other enjoined ‘Just remember … how she revealed her swollen pride by the very boastfulness of her immoderate display; and how she reluctantly tossed us a few little things from all that treasure; and then, burdened by our presence, she hastily ordered us to be driven out, blown off, and whistled away’.¹⁴

During the eighteenth century, however, the Psyche of reference was not that of Apuleius, but of Les Amours de Psiché et de Cupidon by Jean de La Fontaine, first published in 1669 and republished frequently thereafter.¹⁵ As David Carritt noted, NG 6445 owes more to La Fontaine than to Apuleius.¹⁶ In view of the wealth of detail in NG 6445, some of which is however missing on account of the picture having been cut down (see Technical Notes), it is worth quoting the relevant passages from La Fontaine at some length: … à son lever [Psyche] fut tout étonnée que les Nymphes lui amenèrent ses soeurs. La joye de Psyche ne fut pas moindre que sa surprise: elle en donna mille marques, mille baisers, que ses soeurs reçûrent au moins mal qui leur fut possible, & avec toute la dissimulation dont elles se trouvèrent capables. Déja l’envie s’étoit emparée du coeur de ces deux [page 207][page 208]personnes … Comment! On les avoit fait attendre que leur soeur fût éveillée! Etoit‐il d’un autre sang? avoit‐elle plus de mérite que ses aînées? Leur cadette être une Déesse, & elles de chétives Reines! La moindre chambre de ce Palais valoit dix Royaumes comme ceux de leurs maris! Passe encore pour des richesses; mais de la Divinité, c’étoit trop. Hé quoi! les mortelles n’étoient pas dignes de la servir! on voyoit une douzaine de Nymphes à l’entour d’une Toilette, à l’entour d’un Brodequin! Mais quel Brodequin! qui valoit autant que tout ce qu’elles avoient coûté en habits, depuis qu’elles étoient au monde. C’est ce qui rouloit au coeur de ces femmes, ou pour mieux dire, de ces furies; je ne devrois pas les appeller autrement. Cette première entrevûe se passa pourtant comme il faut, grâce à la franchise de Psyché et à la dissimulation de ses soeurs. Leur cadette ne s’habilla qu’à demi, tant il tardoit à la Belle de leur montrer sa béatitude. Elle commença par le point le plus important, c’est‐à‐dire par les habits, & par l’attirail que le sexe traîne aprés lui. Il étoit rangé dans des magasins dont à peine on voyoit le bout; vous scavez que cet attirail est une chose infinie. Là se rencontroit avec abondance ce qui contribue non seulement à la propreté, mais à la délicatesse; équipage de jour & de nuit, vases & baignoires d’or cizelé, instrumens de luxe, laboratoires; non pour les fards; de quoi eussent‐ils servi à Psyche? … Les laboratoires dont il s’agit n’étoient donc que pour les parfums: il y en avoit en eaux, en essences, en poudres, en pastilles, & en mille espéces dont je ne ai pas les noms, & qui n’en eurent possible jamais. Quand tout l’Empire de Flore, avec les deux Arabies, & les lieux où nait le Baume,¹⁷ seroient distilés, on n’en feroit pas un assortiment de senteurs comme celui‐là. Dans un autre endroit étoient des piles de Joyaux, ornemens & chaînes de Pierreries, Brasselets, Colliers, & autres machines qui se fabriquent à Cythère. On étala les filets de Perles: on déploya les habits chamarrés de Diamans: il y avoit de quoi armer un million de Belles de toutes pièces. Non que Psyché ne se pû passer de ces choses, comme je l’ai déja dit: elle n’étoit pas de ces Conquérantes à qui il faut un peu d’aide; mais pour la grandeur & pour la forme son mari le vouloit ainsi. Ses soeurs soûpiroient à la vûe de ces objets; c’étoient autant de serpens que leur rongeoient l’ame … /… les Nymphes n’étoient pas inutiles; elles préparoient les autres plaisirs, chacune selon son office: celle‐là les collations, celle‐ci la symphonie, d’autres les divertissemens de théâtre.¹⁸(… at her rising Psyche was quite astonished that the Nymphs had brought her sisters to her. Her joy was no less than her surprise: she gave a thousand signs of it, and a thousand embraces, such that her sisters accepted them with the least ill will that they found possible, and with all the pretence of which they were capable. Already the hearts of the two sisters were gripped by envy … What! They were made to wait around while their sister was woken! Was she of a different blood? Was she more worthy than her elders? Their youngest sister was a goddess and they were mere queens! The most modest room of this palace was worth ten times the worth of their husbands’ kingdoms! Wealth was one thing, but divinity, that was too much. And what about this! Mortals were not good enough to serve her! Here were a dozen Nymphs for her toilette, for one of her lace‐up sandals! But what a sandal! One was worth as much as all their clothes had cost since birth. That’s what drove at the hearts of these women, or rather these shrews; I should not call them otherwise. This first meeting, however, passed off as it should, thanks to the candour of Psyche and the dissembling of her sisters. Their youngest sister was only half dressed, so much did la Belle spin out showing them her state of bliss. She began with the most important thing, namely her clothes, and the paraphernalia that women carry around with them. It was arranged in warehouses the end of which one could scarcely see; you know that such paraphernalia is endless. There in abundance were things not just for bathing but also for adornment; the whole shebang for daytime and for the night, vases and bathtubs of chiselled gold, luxury implements, alembics; not for make‐up, what use would that have been to Psyche? … The alembics in question were there only for perfumes: there were some water‐based, some distilled, some powdered, some in paste, and a thousand kinds whose names I don’t know, nor ever could. When all the empire of Flora, with the two lands of Araby, and the places whence comes the Balsam [of Mecca],¹⁹ were distilled, one would not create a selection of scents like there was there. Elsewhere were piles of jewels, ornaments and links of precious stones, bracelets, necklaces, and other devices which are made in Cythera. Spread out were strings of pearls, displayed were clothes embroidered with diamonds: there was the wherewithal to equip a thousand Belles with items of every kind. Not that Psyche could not leave aside these things, as I have already said; she was not one of those Heroines needful of a little help; but for the sake of status and good form her husband wanted it thus. Her sisters sighed at the sight of these objects; they were like so many serpents gnawing at their hearts … / … the Nymphs were not useless; they prepared other delights, each according to her role; this one refreshments, that one music, others theatrical entertainment.) NG 6445 has been cut down and, as Pierre Rosenberg suggested, the area of canvas cut at the left most likely contained the jewellery which is central to the story and at which the sisters are looking.²⁰ In addition, whereas in [page 209]Apuleius the emotion of envy is evident, it was, as Carritt pointed out,²¹ La Fontaine who introduced envy into the tale as an allegorical figure (here seen flying above Psyche’s sisters): ‘Ce méchant couple [that is, the two sisters] amenoit avec lui / La curieuse et misérable Envie’ (‘That spiteful couple brought with them the bizarre and wretched Envy’)²².

The abundance of figures and objects in NG 6445 matches the spirit and many of the details of La Fontaine’s story.²³ At about the centre of the painting (before it was cut down), and within the majestic columns of Cupid’s palace, Psyche’s two sisters ‘soûpiroient à la vûe de ces objets’ while the ‘serpens que leur rongeoient l’ame’ squirm above their heads in the hands of the hovering figure of Envy, who ‘s’étoit emparée du coeur de ces deux personnes’. Fragonard’s figure of Envy, an old woman with wild, snake‐like hair and sagging breasts and with snakes in her hands, differs from Ripa’s Envye in not caressing a multi‐headed hydra,²⁴ but the absence of a hydra was not unusual in artists’ depictions of this allegorical figure.²⁵ Of La Fontaine’s ‘douzaine de Nymphes’ five are easily discernible – and, faintly, a sixth at what is now the left edge of the painting – and, if they are not all ‘à l’entour d’une Toilette’, one is shown dressing Psyche’s hair while two others hold up fabrics for their mistress. She, as shown in NG 6445, ‘ne s’habilla qu’à demi’, while at the bottom right there is what may be the back of a gilt‐framed wall mirror here resting on the ground. As La Fontaine’s account makes clear, Psyche’s clothes, ‘le point le plus important’, were the first things she wished to show to her sisters. There were also items of female paraphernalia in such abundance that one could scarcely see the end of it: vases, bathtubs of engraved and embossed gold, and alembics for mixing perfumes of a thousand kinds. Fragonard has indicated the perfumes both by the perfume burner, known as a cassolette, at the right and the flowers scattered throughout the composition. The piles of jewels, ornaments, links of precious stones, pearls and diamond‐encrusted clothes were according to La Fontaine ‘dans un autre endroit’. A few jewels appear in the painting – Psyche wears a double string of pearls and pearl earrings, and a jewelled object appears below the quiver. Nevertheless, although it is possible that the part of the painting now cut off, and at which Psyche is pointing and her sisters gazing, contained the buskin that, according to La Fontaine, was worth more than all the clothes that the sisters had ever possessed, it is more likely to have contained the piles of jewels also described by him. Other objects in the painting are the full quiver representative of Cupid, and the cymbals and flute presumably representative of ‘la symphonie’, which was the responsibility of one of the nymphs. Just behind the quiver is a gold plate and there is a gold basin towards the bottom right. As indicated by the X‐radiograph and infrared radiography (see Technical Notes and fig. 1), Fragonard had originally painted some kind of jar below the basket of flowers at the right, perhaps to indicate ‘les collations’ which another of the nymphs had the job of preparing.

Although subjects drawn from the story of Cupid and Psyche were painted in France frequently during the eighteenth century, the episode of Psyche showing her gifts from Cupid was not, in spite of its obvious pictorial possibilities.²⁶ Fragonard would probably have known two recent examples: namely, that of Natoire, painted in 1738 as part of a cycle of the story of Psyche for the Salon Ovale de la Princesse of the hôtel de Soubise, Paris (fig. 2), and the design by Boucher, part of a cycle for the Beauvais tapestry works of which a complete set had been woven in 1742.²⁷ NG 6445 owes nothing to the Natoire for its motifs. Nor did Fragonard indicate Psyche’s sisters’ envy through their facial expressions as emphatically as Natoire had done. In this respect Fragonard is truer to La Fontaine’s account of the sisters accepting Psyche’s kisses ‘… avec toute la dissimulation dont elles se trouvèrent capables’. Unsurprisingly, since Fragonard was recorded as Boucher’s pupil during 1752–3, NG 6445 is closer in spirit to the latter’s rendering of the subject (fig. 3), and it shares with it a greater emphasis on the architecture of the palace, as well as the detail of the cassolette. In so far as one can talk of the composition of NG 6445 given that it has been cut down, it shares much, albeit in reverse, with an earlier work by Boucher, namely Mucius Scaevola putting his Hand in the Fire (fig. 4), which Alastair Laing has assigned to the period around 1727: the bent figure leaning forward near the front of the picture plane, that figure’s relationship to a gesturing figure seated on a throne, itself on a raised dais, and two figures standing, as it were, in opposition to the seated figure. Without going so far as to say that Boucher’s Mucius Scaevola inspired NG 6445, or that the elements noted were exclusive to them, it does at least underline the fact that at this early stage of his career Fragonard was absorbing Boucher’s visual language.

Fragonard may have found more specific inspiration from Boucher’s design of The Toilet of Psyche made for the Beauvais tapestry works, in which a seated, half‐dressed Psyche is having her hair dressed and is surrounded by toilet paraphernalia of the kind described by La Fontaine (fig. 5).²⁸ In addition the figures of the two nymphs standing immediately behind the seated Psyche in that tapestry may well have provided the immediate source for Psyche’s sisters [page 210][page 211] in NG 6445, even if their ultimate source was, as Howard Coutts pointed out, Veronese’s Finding of Moses, either in the version which then belonged to Louis‐Michel Vanloo (Washington, National Gallery of Art) or the version then in the French royal collection (Dijon, Musée des Beaux‐Arts).²⁹ As indicated in the Technical Notes, objects once in NG 6445 may have included a large jug in the basin, something prominent in the tapestry of Psyche showing her Treasures, and therefore in Boucher’s final design for the Beauvais tapestry (but not in the relative grisaille sketch). Fragonard appears also to have borrowed for NG 6445 from another of Boucher’s designs for the Beauvais tapestry series: the nymph with the basket of flowers at the right of NG 6445 seems to be a more dynamic amalgam of two of Boucher’s figures, the first being the figure right of centre carrying a basket of flowers in Psyche led by Zephyr into Cupid’s Palace and the second, on account of the turn of the head, being the figure bending forwards and looking at Psyche, at the right of one of the larger versions of Psyche displaying her Treasures to her Sisters. No set of the Psyche tapestry series entered the French royal collection until 1758, however, so Fragonard may have been working from, and reversing, elements from Boucher’s grisaille sketches or the cartoons, rather than the tapestries themselves.³⁰

NG 6445 is suffused with Boucher in the concept of its composition, its numerous motifs and its spirit. For example, the putti seem to have flown out of any number of Boucher paintings and drawings, and the architecture at the right of NG 6445 owes something to Boucher’s reception piece, Rinaldo and Armida (Paris, Louvre, oil on canvas, 135.5 × 170.5 cm), painted in 1734 and easily accessible to the younger artist at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture.³¹ In its overall display of opulence NG 6445 is of a kind with Boucher’s Toilet of Venus in New York (fig. 6), which had been painted for Mme de Pompadour in 1751, even if NG 6445 never quite matches the packed lushness of that picture.³² As Laing has pointed out, the cassolette in Boucher’s Toilet of Venus, with its embossed acanthus leaves and goat’s feet, must have been conceived as something à la grecque.³³ The feet of the cassolette in NG 6445, if indeed it has any, are hidden by drapery and there are no acanthus leaves on it. Nevertheless, it shares with that of Boucher certain design elements – namely, a trellis pattern around the upper part of the bowl and fluted decoration around the lower part. Cassolettes were especially in vogue during the eighteenth century. The one in NG 6445 may be imagined rather than based on an actual object, but was of a type of luxury item in gilded bronze or silver that was owned by the dauphine and Mme de Pompadour.³⁴ In addition to the cassolette, and to the banded columns which appear in the background architecture of both Boucher’s reception piece and in NG 6445, another small detail suggests Fragonard’s close knowledge of, and even homage to, the Boucher: that is the golden sculpted putto’s head adorning the scrolled armrest of Psyche’s throne. This was probably inspired by the sculpted putto atop the canapé on which Boucher’s Venus in The Toilet of Venus is seated.³⁵ Finally, Richard Rand has noted the formal similarities of opposing diagonals formed by the principal protagonists in NG 6445 (Psyche and Envy) and by those in Fragonard’s Diana and Endymion (Washington, National Gallery of Art, inv. 1960.6.2) which was long attributed to Boucher.³⁶

Nevertheless, NG 6445 also recalls the work of painters other than Boucher, including Fragonard himself, if one considers elements of his Jeroboam sacrificing to the Idols of 1752 (Paris, Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux‐Arts)³⁷ – namely, the extensive architecture, a foreground replete with objects, the dais on which the principal figure is seated, the repoussoir figure at the left and the colour palette. The head of Psyche more than anything recalls a type painted by Carle Vanloo: slightly later in the case of the head of the seated figure with a music book in his Le Concert Espagnol of 1754 (St Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum), but also in that of the singing child in Music, one of a set of four allegories of the arts painted for the château de Bellevue in 1752–3 (fig. 7). As regards Fragonard’s source for the pose of Psyche, such seated figures were so common that any attempt to identify a particular one would be pointless. Were he minded to indicate in Psyche’s mien the air of divinity which, according to La Fontaine, her sisters found so irritating, then he might well have looked at creating a Psyche/Diana from any number of depictions of the goddess in the story of Diana and Callisto or, for example, the etching by Pierre Brebiette, of another scene inspired by the story of Diana, Diana’s Nymphs [page 212]playing at Archery (New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery). However, if a painted or engraved Diana was not readily to hand, Fragonard could have turned to one of the allegories which Carle Vanloo was painting for the Cabinet du Conseil at Fontainebleau in 1753 – that is The Earth, the disposition of whose limbs and drapery is broadly like that of Psyche in NG 6445 (fig. 8).³⁸ Equally, Fragonard may have thought to adapt the pose of Mme de Pompadour as Vanloo portrayed her in A Sultana drinking Coffee painted in about 1752 as an overdoor for the château de Bellevue (fig. 9).³⁹ That the main figure in NG 6445 recalls Vanloo may explain its previous attribution to the artist. However, the angular, agitated drapery in NG 6445 has little to do with Vanloo, nor the fearsome menace of Envy, nor the pose of the nymph dressing Psyche’s hair, which, with its sense of dramatic, contorted, even violent movement, looks forward to Fragonard’s Le Verrou.⁴⁰

One may speculate that when NG 6445 was exhibited at Versailles, parallels might have been made between Psyche and Mme de Pompadour, and for all that Fragonard showed himself to be a model student of La Fontaine’s text and a worthy emulator of Boucher in particular, he showed some insensitivity, or boldness, in his choice of subject. That there was already some identification between Psyche and Louis XV’s mistress seems probable given that Jean‐Baptiste‐Marie Pierre’s Psyché retirée du fleuve par les nymphes (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, inv. 30.06) of 1750 had that year been exhibited at the Salon and noted in the livret as painted for Bellevue.⁴¹ The facts that Psyche’s features in NG 6445 resemble those of the singing child in Vanloo’s La Musique, and her pose that of Mme de Pompadour in the same artist’s A Sultana drinking Coffee, may have reinforced the identification.⁴² As Alden Gordon has suggested in connection with La Musique, the child is a ‘hidden portrait’ of Mme de Pompadour.⁴³ Possibly Fragonard was aware that a Psyche/Pompadour connection could be made, but less sensitive to the possibility of one being made, if such was the case, between Psyche’s envious sisters and Louis XV’s envious daughters (even if there were four, not two, daughters).⁴⁴

Some of the motifs in NG 6445 had an afterlife in Fragonard’s subsequent work. While there is only a faint likeness between one of the Furies in Fragonard’s drawing Medea slaying her Children (Ottowa, National Gallery of Canada) and Invidia in NG 6445,⁴⁵ that figure has been turned right through 90 degrees for the figure of Vengeance in Coresus sacrificing himself to save Callirhoe (Paris, Louvre). The Coresus also shares with NG 6445 a grand, enclosing architecture, the principal figures on a raised dais, a tasselled carpet and a bowl in the foreground. Such features, less the carpet but with the addition of a cassolette and Jupiter in the guise of an eagle taking the place of Invidia, are also in two drawings by Fragonard of the subject of Jupiter and Danaë.⁴⁶

Rosenberg has suggested that Fragonard’s son, Alexandre‐Evariste, most likely saw NG 6445 at the Papillon de La Ferté sale in 1797, the year in which he made a drawing of the same subject (Paris, Louvre).⁴⁷ In composition, spirit and style it is, however, very different, and it may have been prompted as much by the continuing popularity of depicting subjects from the myth of Psyche as by the appearance of NG 6445 at auction.⁴⁸ A more pertinent comparison might be made with one of a series of wallpaper designs based on the Psyche story and published in Paris in 1815. One of these shows the same episode from the story as in NG 6445, but the composition and the figures differ. However, in another of the designs, Psyche presents Venus with a Glass of Water from the Fountain of [page 213]Youth, Venus bears some resemblance to Psyche in NG 6445, while the sisters in the painting have close counterparts in the standing figures in the design (fig. 10).⁴⁹

The reattribution by Carritt of NG 6445 from Carle Vanloo to Fragonard was first reported in The Times on 17 June 1977 when Geraldine Norman wrote that ‘[Carritt] … looks as if he has secured the bargain of the Mentmore sale’, and that it might be worth one million more dollars than he had paid.⁵⁰ The following day she reported that Carritt’s attribution had been generally accepted in the art world and wrote of Lady Rosebery’s ‘philosophical view about the money her family may have lost by Sotheby’s failure to recognize the picture’.⁵¹ Carritt’s re‐attribution depended in part on the subject of NG 6445 being correctly identified as that of the work exhibited by Fragonard at Versailles in March 1754. A doubt about this expressed by the scholar D.M. White, who suggested that the subject was Diana railing at Callisto for breaking her vow of chastity, was convincingly refuted by Carritt.⁵² In a sense it would have suited the British Government had White’s idiosyncratic opinion been generally upheld, because the bargain Carritt acquired only underlined the timidity of its refusal to buy Mentmore House and its contents at a net reported cost of about £2 million, a refusal that excited considerable controversy at the time.⁵³ In the event, NG 6445 was enthusiastically welcomed by the art world⁵⁴ and its attribution as an autograph work by Fragonard has since been universally accepted.

General References

Courajod 1874 (1994), p. 36; Portalis 1889, pp. 18, 286, 330 (no. 141); Nolhac 1906, p. 14; Réau 1956, p. 146; Wildenstein 1960, no. 89, p. 216 (as lost); Wildenstein and Mandel 1972, no. 26 (as lost, and engraved by Gérard); The National Gallery Report January 1978–to December 1979, pp. 22–3; Wilson 1985, p. 100; Cuzin 1988a, pp. 19–22, and no. 2, p. 261; Rosenberg 1989, no. 26.

Notes