The Storm (Fragonard)

Painted during his time in Rome, it was inspired by the caravan pictures of Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione that were particularly admired in Paris.

[3] The painting, 0.73m high and 0.97m wide, was a bequest to the Louvre in 1869 from the collection of Louis La Caze.

The subject is similar to Castiglione’s pictures of overloaded vehicles, while the overcast sky and impending storm has more in common with the works of 17th century Dutch masters than with Italian models.

[3] The cart is stuck, and men are trying to push it forward from the rear while the ox bellows in front.

[3] Paul Bins, comte de Saint-Victor described the work as having “the poetry of a shipwreck.”[2] The Goncourt brothers praised it liberally, and commented on the “smoky, gloomy, electric sky, shot with cracks of pale daylight.”[5] The painting was first shown to the Paris public in 1860 at an exhibition of 18th-century French masterpieces in the Boulevard des Italiens that had, until then, been kept in private collections.

1759 preparatory drawing for The Storm