Museum Villa Jean Fragonard
This elegant late 17th-century villa with a magnificent garden with majestic palm trees houses the works of the famous Grasse painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard and his descendants.

It was one of the first homes built outside the city center at the time. It belonged to three old Provençal families before the villa was bought by Alexandre Maubert, a wealthy perfume merchant. Maubert was a cousin of Jean-Honoré Fragonard and welcomed him into his home in 1790-91 when Fragonard had to leave Paris for political reasons.

The city of Grasse acquired the house when it was up for sale in 1977 to turn it into a museum.

Fragonard was one of the most prolific painters and draftsmen of the 18th century.He was born in 1732 in Grasse in the south of France and moved with his family to Paris at an early age.

Copies and stunning trompe l’oeil
Over four decades he produced many brilliant easel paintings such as The Swing (London, Wallace Collection) from 1767 and Portraits de Fantasie (Paris, Musée du Louvre and elsewhere), painted in the late 1760s and early 1770s; in addition, great decorative works, the most significant example being the four magisterial canvases known as Progress of Love (1771-1772; New York, Frick Collection), commissioned by Madame du Barry (1743-1793).

Today, splendid copies of these paintings adorn the museum’s salons. In addition to original drawings and paintings by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, the staircase reveals a stunning trompe-l’oeil decoration.

“Trompe-l’oeil” is a special technique that deceives the eye – a genre of art that attempts to make it impossible for the eye to distinguish between a painted and a real object.

You can also experience one of Jean Honoré Fragonard’s rare religious paintings in the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Puy – “Washing of Feet” from 1754.

During the last decade of his life, his artistic output diminished, perhaps recognizing that his late Rococo style was out of step with the times.He died in 1806.

Downstairs on the garden side of the villa is another museum worth visiting – the Musee de la Marine de Admiral de Grasse. And just a three-minute walk away is Cafe de Musee and Parfumeri Fragonard.

By Tommy Sverre / 202F