A smiling older man, who is nearly hidden in the shadows on the right, propels the swing with a pair of ropes, as a small white dog barks nearby.

According to the memoirs of the dramatist Charles Collé,[2] a courtier (homme de la cour)[3] first asked Gabriel François Doyen to make this painting of him and his mistress.

[2] The man had requested a portrait of his mistress seated on a swing being pushed by a bishop, but Fragonard painted a layman.

A firm provenance begins only with the tax farmer Marie-François Ménage de Pressigny, who was guillotined in 1794,[6] after which it was seized by the revolutionary government.

[7] Between August and November 2021, The Swing underwent sensitive conservation at the Wallace Collection in an effort to reverse the natural aging process, which had diminished the painting's appearance.