Schetsen naar schilderijen in de Trinità dei Monti en het Palazzo Spada 1742 - 1806

Jean-Honoré Fragonard made this drawing with graphite in the 18th century. As the title suggests, the sheet compiles two sketches made after paintings located in Roman palaces. Such sketches were part of the culture of formal artistic training in France at the time, institutionalized in the Académie Royale. For young painters like Fragonard, a trip to Italy, funded by the French state, was considered essential to encounter and copy the masterpieces of the past. Making studies of established artworks was intended to help artists develop their skills in composition, anatomy, and expression by absorbing the classical tradition. These drawings, therefore, are not just records of existing paintings but traces of an artist's formation within specific institutional structures. The sketches are documents that help us understand the making of art as embedded in a social and institutional context. Analyzing the drawings alongside archival sources, like the records of the Académie Royale, sheds light on the networks of power and patronage that shaped artistic careers in 18th-century France.