The Souvenir Greetings Card

A young girl carves the initial of her lover on the bark of a tree, while observed by her pet spaniel, the symbol of her fidelity. The theme reflects the increasing sensibilité of the second half of the eighteenth century. Its scale and careful technique also show Fragonard varying his style to echo the contemporary taste for Dutch seventeenth-century cabinet paintings, although he continued to animate such stylistic references with his own inimitable theatrical lighting, delicate draughtsmanship and calligraphic traceries of hair and foliage.

• Blank inside
• Dimensions: 16cm x 11.5cm
• Printed in the UK
• Painting details: Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Le chiffre d’mour (The Souvenir), (detail), c. 1775-c.1780, Oil on panel, 25.2x19cm, P382, The Wallace Collection, London.