Jean-Honoré Fragonard - The stolen kiss

Title: The stolen kiss (Le baiser volé)
Artist: Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806)
Date: 1780
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 45 x 55 cm

“Stolen Kiss” depicts a kiss between a young lady who appears to have left her company in the room next door and a young man who has come in through a balcony door. The composition is diagonal, made up by an axis composed through her leaning figure and her shawl draped over a table, pointing to the company next door who is going on with their conversation unknowingly. The painting displays the kind of eroticism and voluptuousness that was popular in the 18th-century.

Fragonard’s expressive brushstrokes, which lead figures and landscapes to dissolve into individual strokes when seen closely, had a strong influence on the Impressionists.