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Fragonard and his Companions aboard a Boat on the Rhine
Jean Honoré Fragonard French
Not on view
Recasting an unpleasant episode as a humorous anecdote, Fragonard here represents himself (in the bed at the rear of the cabin) and fellow seasick passengers on a boat. The sheet had long been assumed to depict the crossing between Antibes, France, and San Remo that the artist and his patron Bergeret made en route to Italy in 1773. Recent scholarship, however, has established the journey as a slightly earlier one, when the two men were returning from a visit to Amsterdam. Their traveling companions sprawl in chairs and on the floor in obvious distress. The only passenger unaffected, it would seem, was Bergeret himself, who appears through the doorway on the right, writing at a desk.
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