Saucy and erotic, “The Swing” by Jean-Honoré Fragonard seduced its way to become his most famous work. Technically masterful and titillatingly scandalous, the painting was an immediate success. The voyeuristic work shows a woman coyly displaying herself to a man who gazes raptly up her skirts. The painting is said to have been commissioned by an aristocrat who was unaware that while he was pushing his mistress on a swing, her lover was sequestered in nearby rosebushes. Although the work flaunts a graphic explicitness, it epitomizes Fragonard’s (1732 – 1806) Rococo style in its wit, exuberance and resplendent textures.

© Art.com