benefited from the study of the old masters whom he was set to copy—always remembering Boucher’s parting advice not to take Raphael and Michelangelo too seriously. He successively passed through the studios of masters as widely different in their aims and technique as Chardin, Boucher, Van Loo and Natoire, and a summer sojourn at the Villa d’Este in the company of the abbé de Saint-Non, who engraved many of Fragonard’s studies of these entrancing gardens, did more towards forming his personal style than all the training at the various schools. It was in these romantic gardens, with their fountains, grottos, temples and terraces, that he conceived the dreams which he was subsequently to embody in his art. Added to this influence was the deep impression made upon his mind by the florid sumptuousness of Tiepolo, whose works he had an opportunity of studying in Venice before he returned to Paris in 1761. In 1765 his “Corésus et Callirhoé” secured his admission to the Academy. It was made the subject of a pompous eulogy by Diderot, and was bought by the king, who had it reproduced at the Gobelins factory. Hitherto Fragonard had hesitated between religious, classic and other subjects; but now the demand of the wealthy art patrons of Louis XV.’s pleasure-loving and licentious court turned him definitely towards those scenes of love and voluptuousness with which his name will ever be associated, and which are only made acceptable by the tender beauty of his colour and the virtuosity of his facile brushwork—such works as the “Serment d’amour” (Love Vow), “Le Verrou” (The Bolt), “La Culbute” (The Tumble), “La Chemise enlevée” (The Shift Withdrawn), and “The Swing” (Wallace collection), and his decorations for the apartments of Mme du Barry and the dancer Marie Guimard.
The Revolution made an end to the ancien régime, and Fragonard, who was so closely allied to its representatives, left Paris in 1793 and found shelter in the house of his friend Maubert at Grasse, which he decorated with the series of decorative panels known as the “Roman d’amour de la jeunesse,” originally painted for Mme du Barry’s pavilion at Louvreciennes. The panels in recent years came into the possession of Mr Pierpont Morgan. Fragonard returned to Paris early in the 19th century, where he died in 1806, neglected and almost forgotten. For half a century or more he was so completely ignored that Lübke, in his history of art (1873), omits the very mention of his name. But within the last thirty years he has regained the position among the masters of painting to which he is entitled by his genius. If the appreciation of his art by the modern collector can be expressed in figures, it is significant that the small and sketchy “Billet Doux,” which appeared at the Cronier sale in Paris in 1905 and was subsequently exhibited by Messrs Duveen in London (1906), realized close on £19,000 at the Hôtel Drouot.
Besides the works already mentioned, there are four important pictures by Fragonard in the Wallace collection: “The Fountain of Love,” “The Schoolmistress,” “A Lady carving her Name on a Tree” (usually known as “Le Chiffre d’amour”) and “The Fair-haired Child.” The Louvre contains thirteen examples of his art, among them the “Corésus,” “The Sleeping Bacchante,” “The Shift Withdrawn,” “The Bathers,” “The Shepherd’s Hour” (“L’Heure du berger”), and “Inspiration.” Other works are in the museums of Lille, Besançon, Rouen, Tours, Nantes, Avignon, Amiens, Grenoble, Nancy, Orleans, Marseilles, &c., as well as at Chantilly. Some of Fragonard’s finest work is in the private collections of the Rothschild family in London and Paris.
See R. Portalis, Fragonard (Paris, 1899), fully illustrated; Felix Naquet, Fragonard (Paris, 1890); Virgile Josz, Fragonard—mœurs du XVIII e siècle (Paris, 1901); E. and J. de Goncourt, L’Art du dix-huitième siècle—Fragonard (Paris, 1883). (P. G. K.)
FRAHN, CHRISTIAN MARTIN (1782–1851), German numismatist
and historian, was born at Rostock. He began his
Oriental studies under Tychsen at the university of Rostock, and
afterwards prosecuted them at Göttingen and Tübingen. He
became a Latin master in Pestalozzi’s famous institute in 1804,
returned home in 1806, and in the following year was chosen to
fill the chair of Oriental languages in the Russian university of
Kazan. Though in 1815 he was invited to succeed Tychsen at
Rostock, he preferred to go to St Petersburg, where he became
director of the Asiatic museum and councillor of state. He died
at St Petersburg.
Frahn wrote over 150 works. Among the more important are: Numophylacium orientale Pototianum (1813); De numorum Bulgharicorum fonte antiquissimo (1816); Das muhammedanische Münzkabinet des asiatischen Museum der kaiserl. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu St Petersburg (1821); Numi cufici ex variis museis selecti (1823); Notice d’une centaine d’ouvrages arabes, &c., qui manquent en grande partie aux bibliothèques de l’Europe (1834); and Nova supplementa ad recensionem Num. Muham. Acad. Imp. Sci. Petropolitanae (1855). His description of some medals struck by the Samanid and Bouid princes (1804) was composed in Arabic because he had no Latin types.
FRAME, a word employed in many different senses, signifying
something joined together or shaped. It is derived ultimately
from O.E. fram, from, in its primary meaning “forward.”
In constructional work it connotes the union of pieces of wood,
metal or other material for purposes of enclosure as in the case
of a picture or mirror frame. Frames intended for these uses
are of great artistic interest but comparatively modern origin.
There is no record of their existence earlier than the 16th century,
but the decorative opportunities which they afforded caused
speedy popularity in an artistic age, and the Renaissance found
in the picture frame a rich and attractive means of expression.
The impulses which made frames beautiful have long been extinct
or dormant, but fine work was produced in such profusion
that great numbers of examples are still extant. Frames for
pictures or mirrors are usually square, oblong, round or oval,
and, although they have usually been made of wood or composition
overlaid upon wood, the richest and most costly
materials have often been used. Ebony, ivory and tortoiseshell;
crystal, amber and mother-of-pearl; lacquer, gold and silver,
and almost every other metal have been employed for this
purpose. The domestic frame has in fact varied from the
simplest and cheapest form of a plain wooden moulding to the
most richly carved examples. The introduction in the 17th
century of larger sheets of glass gave the art of frame-making
a great essor, and in the 18th century the increased demand
for frames, caused chiefly by the introduction of cheaper forms
of mirrors, led to the invention of a composition which could
be readily moulded into stereotyped patterns and gilded. This
was eventually the deathblow of the artistic frame, and since
the use of composition moulding became normal, no important
school of wood-carving has turned its attention to frames. The
carvers of the Renaissance, and down to the middle of the
18th century, produced work which was often of the greatest
beauty and elegance. In England nothing comparable to that
of Grinling Gibbons and his school has since been produced.
Chippendale was a great frame maker, but he not only had
recourse to composition, but his designs were often extravagantly
rococo. Even in France there has been no return of the great
days when Oeben enclosed the looking-glasses which mirrored
the Pompadour in frames that were among the choicest work
of a gorgeous and artificial age. In the decoration of frames
as in so many other respects France largely followed the fashions
of Italy, which throughout the 16th and 17th centuries produced
the most elaborate and grandiose, the richest and most palatial,
of the mirror frames that have come down to us. English art
in this respect was less exotic and more restrained, and many
of the mirrors of the 18th century received frames the grace
and simplicity of which have ensured their constant reproduction
even to our own day.
FRAMINGHAM, a township of Middlesex county, Massachusetts,
U.S.A., having an area of 27 sq. m. of hilly surface,
dotted with lakes and ponds. Pop. (1890) 9239; (1900) 11,302,
of whom 2391 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 12,948.
It is served by the Boston & Albany, and the New York, New
Haven & Hartford railways. Included within the township
are three villages, Framingham Center, Saxonville and South
Framingham, the last being much the most important. Framingham
Academy was established in 1792, and in 1851 became a part
of the public school system. A state normal school (the first
normal school in the United States, established at Lexington
