77 JEAN-HONORE FRAGONARD French, 1732-1806 "Oh! If Only He Were as Faithful to Me!" Brush and brown wash over black chalk 24.8 x 38.3 cm (9¾ x 15 in.) Cat. I, no. 69; 82.GB.165 The abandoned young woman, dressed only in a neglige, kneels on her unmade bed with her hands clasped in despair and fixes a yearning gaze on her little dog. The faithfulness of the pet, which stares back at her devotedly, is a foil for the waywardness of her absent lover. He is reproached in her sigh, "S'il m'etait aussi fidele!"—the sorrowful quote that forms the title of an engraved version of the composition by Abbe de Saint-Non, published in 1776. If the mood seems exaggeratedly dire, there is a compensating touch of humor. The wronged young woman depends in pose on representations of the penitent Saint Mary Magdalene, the reformed courtesan of the New Testament who anointed Christ's feet and whose hair is similarly untied, long and flowing. Fragonard's drawings in brush and wash are among the most accomplished of the whole eighteenth century. His facility in the medium is astonishing. Especially well judged are his light, fluent washes that here convey the sense of abandonment of the very bedclothes; such passages contrast with the arrestingly exact precision of the small marks with the point of the brush that make up the eye, nostril, and mouth of the girl's attractive profile and are the essence of her expression of sexual regret that so permeates the work. The drawing is one of a number devoted to erotic themes carried out by the artist in the later 1760s. Fragonard's freely painted and colorful pictures of landscape and history subjects are among the most complete embodiments of the French Rococo style. FRENCH SCHOOL 93