↗France, late 19th century-early 20th century · c. 1915–26
Water Lilies (Agapanthus)
Claude Monet
Colour palette
#8B694C#6A4E3A#9D7B5A#BD9973#AB8865#D5B28A
Approximate colour proportions
Estimated from six colour groups in the museum image, including visible paper or borders. Reproduction and lighting affect the result; these are image-area proportions, not pigment measurements.
Grace Rainey Rogers Fund · The Cleveland Museum of Art
Image: public domain (CC0) · Museum record & image source ↗
France · c. 1781
Invocation to Love
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
- Date
- c. 1781
- Medium
- Brush and brown wash with graphite squaring lines and underdrawing on cream laid paper
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 33.5 x 41.6 cm (13 3/16 x 16 3/8 in.); Secondary Support: 37.6 x 47.8 cm (14 13/16 x 18 13/16 in.)
- Country / context
- France
- Movement / tradition
- European and American art
- Collection
- The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Pathway
- European and American art ↗
FROM THE MUSEUM
Fragonard used gardens as the setting for love and courtship in some of his most important works. One such scene, this drawing depicts a woman pleading for help from a statue of Eros, the god of love. He wears a blindfold, suggesting an uncertain outcome for the woman, as does a Cupid who indifferently leans on an orb nearby. Like other artists in 18th-century France, Fragonard was deeply influenced by historic imagery of the Garden of Love—a pastoral and idyllic contained landscape. He revisited the specific image seen here multiple times, in two oil paintings (Musée du Louvre and private collection, New York) and another drawing (Princeton University Art Museum).
Collection text · The Cleveland Museum of Art · CC0A MOMENT TO LOOK
Start with what you can see: shapes, surface, colour and scale. How might the listed materials affect the way this object was made and experienced?
Looking prompt · an invitation to observe, not a historical interpretation.
