Art Institute of ChicagoPublic domain

Portrait of a Man in Costume

Jean Honoré Fragonard · c. 1767–68

Provenance

Ownership history

Possibly Mauperin, Paris; sold A. Paillet, Hôtel de Bullion, Paris, December 4, 1780, no. 38, for 100 livres [“Un Portrait d’homme ajusté selon le costume espagnol. Ce morceau Etude & d’une touche savante est d’un grand effect. Hauteur 30 pouces, Largeur 24. T.” (A portrait of a man dressed in a Spanish costume. This work, sketched and of a sure touch, is of great effect. Height 30 pouces, width 24. Canvas.) The measurements given are equal to 81 x 64.8 cm; price recorded in an annotated sale catalogue at the Frick Art Reference Library, New York]. Sold Hôtel Drouot, Paris, April 20, 1885, no. 14, for Fr 2,900 [price according to an annotated sale catalogue at Galerie Heim, Paris]. Camille Groult (died 1908), Paris; his son Jean Groult (died 1951), Paris; purchased from the Groult collection by Wildenstein, New York, 1954 [telephone conversation of Susan Wise with Ay-Whang Hsia, May 4, 1982]; sold by Wildenstein to Leigh Block, Chicago, 1954 [telephone conversation cited above]; given to the Art Institute by Mary and Leigh Block, 1977.

Recorded by Art Institute of Chicago.

Exhibitions

Exhibition history

Minneapolis, Institute of Arts, French Eighteenth-Century Painters, 1954 (not in cat.).
Chicago, Art Institute, Great French Paintings: An Exhibition in Memory of Chauncey McCormick, 1955, no. 16, as An Actor in the Role of Don Quixote.
Kansas City, The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum, The Century of Mozart, cat. no. 35; as An Actor in the Role of Don Quixote (cat. published as The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum Bulletin 1, 1 [1956]).
Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art, 100 European Paintings and Drawings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Leigh B. Block, 1967; traveled to Boston and Los Angeles, cat. no. 1, as Portrait of a Man as Don Quixote.
Chicago, Art Institute, Masterpieces from Private Collections in Chicago, 1969, not numbered, as Portrait of a Man as Don Quixote.
Chicago, Art Institute, European Portraits, 1600–1900, in The Art Institute of Chicago, 1978, cat. no. 9, as Portrait of a Man or Don Quixote.
Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, A Magic Mirror: The Portraits in France, 1700–1900, October 10, 1986–January 25, 1987, cat. no. 15, as Portrait of a Man (Don Quixote).
Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Fragonard, September 22, 1987– January 4, 1988, cat. no. 128; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Febuary 2-May 8, 1988.
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Fragonard: The Fantasy Figures, Oct. 8-Dec. 3, 2017, Plate 17 (ill.).

Literature

Published references

Baron Roger Portalis, Honoré Fragonard: Sa Vie et son oeuvre, vol. 2, Paris 1889, pp. 277, 286.
Georges Wildenstein, The Paintings of Fragonard: Complete Edition, London, 1960, pp. 14, 256, no. 247, pl. opp. p. 42.
Charles Sterling in Portrait of a Man (The Warrior), Jean Honoré Fragonard, exh. cat., Williamstown, Mass., Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1964, n. pag., fig. 17.
Daniel Wildenstein and Gabriele Mandel, L’opera completa di Honoré Fragonard, Classici dell’arte 62, Milan, 1972, p. 97, no. 264 (ill.).
“New Accession,” Apollo 106 (October 1977), p. 311, fig. 6.
The Art Institute of Chicago, 100 Masterpieces, Chicago, 1978, pp. 25, 77. no, 37.
Denys Sutton in Fragonard, exh. cat., Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, 1980, n. pag.
Jacques Vilain in French Painting: The Revolutionary Decades, 1760–1830, exh. cat., Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1980, p. 87, under no. 38.
Mary Sheriff Jones, “The Portraits de Fantasie [sic] of J.–H. Fragonard: A Study in Eighteenth-Century Art and Theory,” Ph.D. diss., University of Delaware, 1981 (Ann Arbor Michigan, University Microfilms, 1984), pp. 85–86, 198, no. 14, fig. 29.
Pierre Cabanne, Fragonard, Paris, 1987, pp. 63, 65.
Jean Pierre Cuzin, Jean-Honoré Fragonard: Vie et oeuvre, catalogue complet des peintures, Fribourg and Paris, 1987, pp. 123, 294, no. 184 (ill.), fig. 149; English ed., New York, 1988, pp. 125, 295, no. 184 (ill.), pl. 149.
Heinrich, Hahne, “Der Vielgeliebte,” Weltkunst 57 (1987), p. 3695.

Comparables