Surprise! Fragonard’s Abdications
Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, 6 January 2022
On a hot day in August 1806, Jean-Honoré Fragonard stepped into a café near the Champs de Mars to eat an ice cream, collapsed, and died later that day of ‘cerebral congestion’. He was 74 and by this time virtually unknown – a few lines in the daily papers were the only acknowledgment of his death. As an artist, Fragonard had often been at odds with the culture...
