Young Girl Seated

This wistful young girl has at times been identified as the artist’s daughter Rosalie (1769-1788). The traditional title, La Resignée (The Resigned One), seems particularly poignant in light of Rosalie’s death at a very young age.  

The drawing showcases Fragonard’s remarkable use of red chalk, which was very much admired and praised by the nineteenth-century Goncourt brothers, writers and avid collectors of French eighteenth-century drawings. Vigorous strokes, visible in the sitter’s bodice, as well as softer, less distinct lines of the slipping shawl, exemplify Fragonard’s extraordinary dexterity with the handling of the medium.