Provenance
Traditionally associated with the collection of Jean François Leroy de Sennéville [1715-1784], Paris; (his sale, Chariot and Paillet at Hôtel de Bullion, Paris, 5-11 April 1780, no. 50, bought in); (his sale, Paillet, Paris, 26 April 1784, no. 26); purchased by Basan, Paris. possibly Madame Goman, Paris; (her sale, Le Brun and Julliot, Paris, 6 February 1792 and days following, no. 100); Le Brun. possibly Amédée Constantin, Paris; (his estate sale, at his residence by Pérignon, Paris, 18 November 1816, no. 365); bought in or purchased by Pérignon.[1] possibly purchased 1851 by the father of Jules Burat; by inheritance to Jules Burat, by 1883; (his estate sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 28-29 April 1885, no. 71, bought in); probably by inheritance to Madame Louis Burat, Paris, by 1907 until at least 1921.[2] (Wildenstein & Co., Paris, New York, and London), by 1939;[3] sold 1942 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York.[4]
[1] See the discussion of the early provenance by Richard Rand in Philip Conisbee et al., _French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century_, The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue, Washington, D.C., 2009: no. 37, 182-187.
[2] The painting was lent by Mme Burat to 1907 and 1921 exhibitions in Paris; it was not included in Mme Burat's sale at Galerie Charpentier in Paris on 17 June 1937.
[3] The painting was exhibited at Wildenstein's, New York, in 1939.
[4] See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2355.
Accession Number
1946.7.7
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 73 x 92.1 cm (28 3/4 x 36 1/4 in.) | framed: 97.8 x 116.8 cm (38 1/2 x 46 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Samuel H. Kress Collection
Tags
Painting Neoclassical & Romantic (1751–1850) Oil Painting Canvas French
Background & Context
Background Story
The Visit to the Nursery (c. 1775-1780) depicts one of the most characteristic social rituals of the 18th-century French aristocracy—the visit to the nursery where children were cared for by wet nurses and servants. The nursery, like the garden, was a social space where the aristocratic family's private life intersected with the service economy that sustained it. The 1775-80 date places this during the later phase of Fragonard's career, when he was expanding his subject range beyond the garden games that had dominated his earlier work. The nursery visit allowed Fragonard to combine his characteristic depiction of aristocratic social rituals with the domestic interior that was becoming increasingly important in late 18th-century painting. The children, attended by servants, represent the aristocratic family's future—the next generation whose care was entrusted to the working-class women who served as wet nurses and nannies. The painting thus reveals the social structure that sustained aristocratic life: the servants who provided the care that aristocratic mothers, following the conventions of their class, did not. This dimension of the painting—the class relationship that the nursery revealed—gives The Visit to the Nursery a documentary significance that complements its artistic beauty.
Cultural Impact
Fragonard's nursery paintings influenced how aristocratic domestic life was represented in 18th-century art, revealing the class relationships that sustained it. The paintings influenced later artists who similarly found subjects in domestic interiors and the relationships between servants and employers. The Visit to the Nursery influenced how the relationship between aristocratic mothers and their children was understood, documenting the nursing practices that defined 18th-century childcare.
Why It Matters
This painting matters because it reveals the class relationships that sustained aristocratic domestic life—the servants who provided the childcare that aristocratic mothers, following convention, did not. Fragonard's treatment preserves both the surface beauty of aristocratic social ritual and the underlying class structure that made it possible.
