Musée Fragonard

The Musée Fragonard is a private art museum in the heart of the old town of Grasse, in France. It opened its doors in 2011 and is dedicated to Jean Honoré Fragonard, born in Grasse in 1732. The son of a glove maker and perfumer, he became one of the most enigmatic figures of French painting of the eighteenth century. The museum is also a homage to Jean François Costa, passionate collector of the French art of the master's century.

The visit unfolds over three floors of galleries. The permanent exhibition traces the whole career of Fragonard in about twenty major works. There you discover gallant scenes, religious paintings, landscapes, fantasy portraits and the late work 'Le Sacrifice de la Rose'. Beside them hang around forty paintings by two other artists of Grasse: Marguerite Gérard and Jean Baptiste Mallet. Gérard, the sister-in-law and pupil of Fragonard, devoted herself to genre scenes and small portraits. The museum holds one of the largest collections of her works. Jean Baptiste Mallet, born in 1759, painted gallant gouaches, anacreontic scenes and works inspired by the revolutionary events. The ground floor and the level of the garden host every year new temporary exhibitions. Agnès and Françoise Costa mount them, continuing in this way the work of their father. Guided tours in several languages and drawing workshops complete the visit.

The visit continues also in the Villa Fragonard, an elegant mansion of the late seventeenth century, surrounded by a garden. The villa gathers the works of Fragonard and of his family: the son Évariste, the grandson Théophile and Marguerite Gérard. The master himself created there, in 1791, the neoclassical decorations in grisaille and trompe-l'œil. In the grand salon the paintings on love await you, made for the countess du Barry and her Château de Louveciennes.