The Stolen Kiss (Fragonard)

The Stolen Kiss is an oil on canvas painting from the end of the 1780s usually but no definitively attributed to the French Rococo artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806), depicting a secretive romance. The painting is hosted in the collection of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. The style of the painting was characteristic of the late French Rococo period and was favoured by the wealthy art patrons of his time.[1]

The Stolen Kiss
fr: Le Baiser à la dérobée
ArtistJean-Honoré Fragonard
Yearlate 1780s[1]
CatalogueGW 523; C 383
MediumOil on canvas[1]
Dimensions45 cm × 55 cm (18 in × 22 in)[1]
LocationHermitage Museum[1][2], Saint Petersburg, Russia

History
The Stolen Kiss, by Nicolas François Regnault after Fragonard (ca. 1788)

The earliest known evidence of The Stolen Kiss comes from the June 1788 issue of the Mercure de France magazine, where an engraving by Nicolas François Regnault of Fragonard's painting has been advertised as a pendant to The Bolt.[3]:95[4]

Shortly later in the 1790s, the work was purchased by Stanisław August Poniatowski, the last sovereign of the first Rzechpospolita; it was present in the catalogue of the Royal Picture Gallery at the Lazienki Palace in Warsaw in 1795. Perhaps it was bought at one of the auctions, which sold goods of the French aristocracy following the Revolution of 1789. This would explain the silence of the sources about the acquisition of the work and its certain formal and thematic incompatibility with the other works of the collection. Poniatowski highly valued The Stolen Kiss, and was willing to have it taken from Warsaw to Saint Petersburg upon his abdication in 1795; the shipment did not take place, though. After Poniatowski's death in 1798, his collection at the Lazienki Palace was formally succeeded by the nephew, Józef Poniatowski, and later by the latter's sister Maria Teresa, who sold the palace in 1817 to Tsar Alexander I, effectively making The Stolen Kiss part of the Russian imperial collection.[5] The painting remained in the Lazienki Palace until 1895, when it was transferred to the Hermitage following a report from the imperial collection curator Andrei Somov, who recommended The Stolen Kiss, with four other paintings from Stanisław August's collection, to be present in the Hermitage on conservation and accessibility concerns.[6][7]

After regaining independence in 1918 first, and later after the end of World War II in 1945, the Polish government made diplomatic efforts to recover the painting. In the light of international law and arrangements with the authorities of the Soviet Union, the painting as work of art of national importance taken by Russians from Poland in the 19th century, or during World War II, was a subject to legal restitution. However, the Soviet authorities refused to release the painting, retaining it in the Hermitage collection, and arbitrarily compensated it (among with several others valuable paintings) with several works of lesser value.[6] In 1922, The Stolen Kiss was specifically compensated with the smaller La femme polonaise (now in the National Museum in Warsaw), a painting of the 1720s formerly attributed to Jean-Antoine Watteau, originally purchased into the Russian imperial collection in 1770 as part of the Crozat collection.[8][9][10][11][12]

Painting

The painting depicts a kiss between two lovers, showing a young lady in cream-coloured silk gown who appears to have left her company for a secret meeting with a young man. The composition is diagonal, made up by an axis composed through her leaning figure, the shawl and the balcony door opening from the outside, ending with the table the shawl is draped over. The painting offers an array of compositional contrasts between colours and shadows: the spatial intersections are complex.[1][13][14][15]

Jean-Honoré Fragonard's works display the kind of eroticism and voluptuousness and the liking for romantic folly that was popular before the French Revolution among French aristocrats. Fragonard includes scenes of voyeurism in his paintings. This scene is depicting the stolen kiss in lavish surroundings, containing luxurious details of textures, silks and lace, like the rug with flower pattern, silk draperies, her shawl on the chair, the elegantly clad ladies that are visible through the open door. The dominant French culture influenced how Fragonard chose his themes, that were mostly erotic or love scenes, painted for Louis XV's pleasure-loving court's enjoyment.[1][13][14][15]

References
  1. "Jean Honore Fragonard, Stolen-Kiss". www.arthermitage.org. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
  2. Fragonard, Jean Honoré. 1732-1806 Stolen Kiss, Hermitage Museum
  3. "Annonces et notices". Mercure de France (in French). June 1788. pp. 89–96 – via Google Books.
  4. Wildenstein 1960, p. 55.
  5. Hermitage Museum 2016, p. 17.
  6. Ciemińska, Joanna. "Skradziony pocałunek Fragonarda | Łazienki Królewskie". www.lazienki-krolewskie.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 2019-09-28.
  7. Hermitage Museum 2016, pp. 57–58.
  8. Norman, Geraldine (1998). The Hermitage: The Biography of a Great Museum. New York: Fromm International. p. 170. ISBN 0880641908. OCLC 1149208999 – via the Internet Archive.
  9. Hermitage Museum 2016, p. 61.
  10. Danielewicz, Iwona (2019). French Paintings from the 16th to 20th Century in the Collection of the National Museum in Warsaw. Complete Illustrated Catalogue Raisonné. Translated by Karolina Koriat, graphic design by Janusz Górski. Warsaw: The National Museum in Warsaw. p. 346. ISBN 978-83-7100-437-7. OCLC 1110653003. Catalogue note no. 279.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  11. Sienkiewicz, Jan Wiktor (2016-07-29). "Gino Severini o polskim malarstwie. Siedemdziesięciolecie wystawy polskich malarzy-żołnierzy w Rzymie w 1944 roku". Sztuka I Kultura. 2: 353. doi:10.12775/szik.2014.008. ISSN 2300-5335.
  12. "Polka (La femme polonaise)". Cyfrowe Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie. Retrieved 2019-12-13.
  13. Jones, Jonathan (9 December 2000). "Portrait of the Week: Young Woman, Jean-Honore Fragonard (c 1769)". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
  14. Rosenberg, Pierre (1988). Fragonard. Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-0-87099-516-3.
  15. "The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting". National Gallery of Art. Retrieved 31 March 2015.

Further reading
  • Borzęcki, Jerzy (2008). The Soviet-Polish Peace of 1921 and the Creation of Interwar Europe. New Haven, London: Yale University Press. p. 260. ISBN 978-0-300-12121-6. JSTOR j.ctt1npz47. OCLC 8182379579.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Cuzin, Jean-Pierre (1988). Fragonard: Life and Work. Translated from the French by Anthony Zielonka and Kim-Mai Mooney. New York: Harry N. Abrams. pp. 223, 224–225, 231, 334; ill. 278; cat. no. 383. ISBN 0-8109-0949-9. OCLC 316813547.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Deryabina, Ekaterina (1989). "Jean-Honoré Fragonard, 1732–1806, The Stolen Kiss". In The Hermitage, Leningrad (ed.). Western European Painting of the 13th to the 18th Centuries. Introduction by Tatyana Kustodieva. Leningrad: Aurora Art Publishers. p. 411, pl. 268. ISBN 5-7300-0066-9 – via the Internet Archive.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg (2016). Екатерина II и Станислав Август: два просвещенных правителя (in Russian). Saint Petersburg: State Hermitage Publishers. cat. no. 36. ISBN 978-5-93572-639-3.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Nemilova, I. S. (1982). Французская живопись XVIII века в Эрмитаже (La peinture française du XVIIIe siècle, Musée de L'Ermitage: catalogue raisonné) [French Painting of the 18th centrty in the Hermitage Museum: Scientific Catalogue] (in Russian). Leningrad: Iskusstvo. pp. 288–289, cat. no. 350. OCLC 63466759.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Nemilova, I. S. (1985). Французская живопись. XVIII век [French Painting: the 18th Century]. Государственный Эрмитаж. Собрание западноевропейской живописи: научный каталог в 16 томах. 10. Edited by A. S. Kantor-Gukovskaya. Leningrad: Iskusstvo. pp. 92–93, cat. no. 48. OCLC 22896528.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Portalis, Roger (1889). Honoré Fragonard: sa vie et son oeuvre. Paris: J. Rothschild. pp. 72, 271 – via the Internet Archive.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Réau, Louis (1928). "Catalogue de l'art français dans les musées russes". Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de l'art français: 167–314 – via Gallica. Cat. no. 102.
  • Thuillier, Jacques (1967). Fragonard. The Taste of Our Time. translated from the French by Robert Allen. Geneva: Skira. OCLC 1149230120 – via the Internet Archive.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Treue, Wilhelm (1961). Art Plunder: The Fate of Works of Art in War and Unrest. Translated from the German by Basil Creighton. New York: John Day Co. pp. 135, 138. OCLC 1028184221 – via the Internet Archive.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Wildenstein, Georges (1960). The Paintings of Fragonard: Complete Edition. London, New York: Phaidon. pp. 55, 320; cat. no. 523; pl. 124. OCLC 1150926490 – via the Internet Archive.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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