A fresh interpretation of the group of Fragonard’s paintings known as the ’figures de fantaisie’, Fragonard and the Fantasy Figure: Painting the Imagination reconnects the fantasy figures with neglected visual traditions in European art and firmly situates them within the cultural and aesthetic contexts of eighteenth-century France. Prior scholarship has focused on the paintings’ connections with portraiture, whereas this study relocates them within a tradition of fantasy figures, where resemblance was ignored or downplayed. The book defines Fragonard as a painter of the...