Portrait of a Young Woman

Portrait of a Young Woman (1770s), at the Metropolitan Museum, is one of Fragonard's informal portrait studies that capture sitters with remarkable freshness and spontaneity. Unlike the formal portraits commissioned by the aristocracy, these studies emphasize personality and momentary expression, rendered with the fluid brushwork that characterizes Fragonard's mature technique. The painting's warm palette and intimate scale create an impression of direct encounter with the sitter, suggesting the private, informal dimension of eighteenth-century French social life. Fragonard's informal portraits anticipate the Romantic emphasis on individual personality and emotional expression that would transform European portraiture in the following century.

The bravura brushwork is remarkably free, with loaded strokes of paint applied wet-on-wet to suggest lace, ribbons, and flowing hair. The palette is dominated by warm golds and creams against a neutral ground, with the speed of execution visible in every energetic, calligraphic mark.