Montpellier: “Le Jeu de la Palette” and “La Bascule” by Fragonard join the collections of the Musée Fabre

“Le Jeu de la Palette” and “La Bascule” (circa 1760-1765, oil on canvas, 75 x 99 cm) by Jean Honoré Fragonard, classified as a “national treasure”, enters the Fabre Museum in Montpellier.

Disappeared since being sold in 1786, the paintings reappeared in 2017 on the occasion of an export certificate order, these two paintings preserve the memory of Fragonard’s first stay in Italy.

by Michele Delavos, the Mayor of Montpellier, who received yesterday Roslyn Bachelot Narquin, Minister of Culture, accompanied by Michel Heller, Secretary General of Heritage, Director of the Fabre Museum, “Welcoming these two masterpieces to Montpellier, at the heart of the city’s oldest cultural site, is an invaluable tribute. This event pays tribute to the remarkable work of the Musée Fabre, its unparalleled acquisition policy, and its innovative public policy aimed at making culture in Accessible to all. In recent months, despite the health crisis and successive closures, the museum teams have spent a lot of effort to revive and reinvent it. The arrival of these two works by Fragonard into the museum’s collections is a real gift, at a time when the public is gradually finding its way into cultural spaces “.

practicallyThe acquisition of these works was made possible thanks to funding from the Louvre, direct assistance from the state through the support of the Heritage Fund and a contribution to corporate sponsorship from Webhelp. The necessary funding has also been supplemented by a tax mechanism related to the national treasures of the General Tax Law.

This is an exceptional deposit It must be an introduction to the free transfer of ownership to the Musée Fabre.