Chardin for but a few months, and Boucher for two years, were the masters who taught Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) before, having gained the Prix de Rome in 1752 and worked three years under Van Loo, he set out for Rome, where under Natoire’s guidance he applied himself to the copying of old masters. More important for the formation of his style were the sketches he made in the company of his friend Hubert Robert in the romantic gardens of the Villa d’Este, and the deep impression created upon his mind by Tiepolo’s decorative paintings in Venice, which city he visited before his return to Paris in 1761. He scored his first great success in 1765 with the large and still somewhat academic composition _Coresus and Calirrhoë_ (No. 290), which was bought by Louis XV. for 24,000 livres for reproduction at his tapestry works. [Illustration: PLATE XLI.—JEAN-BAPTISTE SIMÉON CHARDIN (1699-1779) FRENCH SCHOOL No. 92.—GRACE BEFORE MEAT (Le Bénédicité) In the centre of a room, by a round table with a white tablecloth, stands a woman, about to pour the soup from a saucepan into a plate. She turns her head to the left towards her two little girls, who, with folded hands, are saying grace. A drum is suspended from the back of the chair on which the younger child is sitting. In the background, on the left, a dresser with pewter and crockery; on the right, a shelf with a canister, a bowl, and some bottles. Painted in oil on canvas. 1 ft. 7¼ in. × 1 ft. 3½ in. (0·49 × 0·41.)] Patronised by Mme. du Barry, the dancer Marie Guimard, and other priestesses of Venus, Fragonard now devoted his exceptionally facile and spontaneous talent to subjects that in licentious frivolity, voluptuousness, and suggestiveness had never been equalled even by his master Boucher. It is only his marvellous technique, ranging from the liquid transparency of his swift oil sketches to the rich luminous impasto of the _Sleeping Bacchante_ (No. 294); from the elegant arabesque of the _Bathing Women_ (No. 293), so full of _joie de vivre_ and youthful fire, to the almost brutal strength of the portrait of a writer or poet, known under the title of _Inspiration_ (No. 298). But in all these, as well as in the charming _Music Lesson_ (No. 291, Plate XLII.), _The Student_ (No. 297) and the _Young Woman_ (No. 300), Fragonard proves himself one of the greatest colourists produced by the French School. It was Fragonard’s sad fate to outlive his fame, to witness the collapse of the ancient régime and the triumph of his pupil David’s classicism, and to die in obscurity and neglect. GREUZE