''Blind Man's Bluff'' (French: ''Le collin maillard'') is a painting by the

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

Rococo Rococo, less commonly Roccoco ( , ; or ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpte ...

painter

Jean-Honoré Fragonard Jean-Honoré Fragonard (; 5 April 1732 (birth/baptism certificate) – 22 August 1806) was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific art ...

, produced around 1750 in oil on canvas. It is held by the

Toledo Museum of Art The Toledo Museum of Art is an internationally known art museum located in the Old West End neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio. It houses a collection of more than 30,000 objects. With 45 galleries, it covers 280,000 square feet and is currently in th ...

Toledo, Ohio Toledo ( ) is a city in Lucas County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is located at the western end of Lake Erie along the Maumee River. Toledo is the List of cities in Ohio, fourth-most populous city in Ohio and List of United Sta ...

, United States, which purchased it with funds from the Libbey Endowment, a gift of the glass manufacturer Edward Libbey who founded the museum in 1901. The artist also produced another work of the same title some time between 1775 and 1780, which is held in the Samuel H. Kress Collection. Eighteenth-century

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design on a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ar ...

s were produced of both paintings, showing that they may have originally been as much as a foot higher at the top.

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The painting is full of deceptions – the girl is looking out from under her blindfold and the

game A game is a structured type of play usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or video games) or art ...

seems to be a pretext leading to seduction; the two figures are in pastoral costume, but may be noble or

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and Aristocracy (class), aristocracy. They are tradition ...

figures playing at being pastoral figures; the background seems to be a wood but could be a stage set. In short, it seems to abolish the boundary between truth and lies, reality and fiction. Eva-Gesine Baur, «El rococó y el neoclasicismo » in ''Los maestros de la pintura occidental'', Taschen, 2005, page 360, The

, where the painting is located, describes the work: "Playfully erotic and sensuously painted, Jean-Honoré Fragonard's scene of youthful flirtation fulfils the eighteenth-century aristocratic French taste for romantic pastoral themes. The figures are beautifully dressed in rustic but improbably clean and fashionable clothes; the woman's shoes even have elegant bows on them." The painting was a companion piece '' The See-Saw'' (1750), currently held by the

Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (, ; named after its founder, Baron Heinrich Thyssen, Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza), or simply the Thyssen, is an art museum in Madrid, Spain, located near the Museo del Prado, Prado Museum on one of the city ...

in Madrid. Both draw heavily on the style of

François Boucher François Boucher ( , ; ; 29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style. Boucher is known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories ...

, Fragonard's teacher. Boucher's influence can be seen in the framework of luxuriant vegetation, but the careful composition of the scene is Fragonard's own. Blindman's bluff is a metaphor for courtship, while the back-and-forth movement of the see-saw in the companion piece is, perhaps, a metaphor for the sexual act.

Notes

{{Jean-Honoré Fragonard 1750s paintings Paintings of children Paintings in the Toledo Museum of Art Paintings by Jean-Honoré Fragonard

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See also

Notes