Fear (La Crainte)

Artist Jean-Baptiste Le Prince (French, 1734-1781)

Date1769

Dimensions19 3/4 × 25 1/4 in. (50.2 × 64.1 cm)
Frame: 28 1/2 × 32 1/2 × 3 1/4 in. (72.4 × 82.6 × 8.3 cm)

Mediumoil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1970.444

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 27

Label TextAn example of a “boudoir” scene, this image both amuses and titillates with its interrupted narrative. The details of the painting tell the story: the woman’s reclining pose and disarrayed gown; her startled reaction to the apparent unexpected arrival of someone (her husband?) who is greeted by the leaping dog; the hot chocolate service for two; and the hastily overturned chair. An engraved copy of the painting made in 1785 makes the story even more explicit: the head of a hiding lover was added peeking from behind the bed draperies at the right.Published ReferencesPidansat de Mairobert, Letter of September 15, 1777, in Les memoires secrets pour servir a l'histoire de la republique des letters en France (1762-1787), republished in: "Letters sur l'Academie Royale...," La Revue Universelle des Arts, XXII, 1865, p. 230.

Hédou, J., Jean-Baptiste Le Prince 1734-1781 peintre et graveur, Paris, 1879, p. 55.

Dupont de Nemours, "Lettres sur les Salons de 1773, 1777 et 1779," Archives de l'art francais, 1908, p. 57, no. 1.

Chiego, W., "A Boudoir Scene by Le Prince," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, XVII, no. 1, 1974, pp. 11-4, figs. 6, 7.

Wildenstein, D., "Sur le Verrou de Fragonard," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, LXXXV, Jan. 1975, pp. 18, 24, no. 20, fig. 7.

Cailleux, J., "Les artistes francais du XVIIIème siècle et Rembrandt," in Etudes d'art francais offertes à Charles Sterling, 1975, p. 300.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, European Paintings, Toledo, 1976, p. 96, pl. 204.

Saisselin, Rémy G., "A Leprince Landscape," Porticus, The Journal of the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, vol. 2, 1979, p. 30, repr. fig. 6.

Hamilton-Phillips, Martha, "Museums and Exhibition Forum: Toledo Museum of Art," Eighteenth Century Life, vol. 16, n.s., 2, May 1992, opp. p. 109, pl. 4.

Compin, Isabelle, Catalogue sommaire illustré des peintures du musée du Louvre et du musée d'Orsay, Ecole francaise, Paris, 1986, vol. 4, p. 52.

Fort, Bernadette, ed., Les salons des "Mémoires secrets" 1767-1787, Paris, 1999, p. 175, ill. 28.

Rosenberg, Pierre, La peinture francaise, Paris, Menges, 2001, v. 1, p. 496, repr. (col.).

Duncan, Sally Anne, Otto Wittmann: Museum Man for All Seasons, Toledo, 2001, p. 17.

"Current and coming," The Magazine Antiques, Nov/Dec 2016, p.28, repr. (col.).

You, Yao-Fen, Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate: Consuming the World, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2016, p. 15, repr. (col.) cat. 7.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Casanova: The Seduction of Europe, Boston, MFA Publications, 2017, pp. 157-160, repr. p. 160 (col.).

Exhibition HistoryParis, Salon of 1777, no. 55.

London, Royal Academy, French Art, 1200-1900, 1932, no. 202 .(commemorative catalogue), no. 324 (regular catalog)

London, Royal Academy, France in the Eighteenth Century, 1968, no. 434.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Age of Louis XV: French Painting 1710-1774, 1975, no. 66, pl. 115.

Hanover, NH, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College; Toledo Museum of Art; Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, Intimate Encounters: Love and Domesticity in Eighteenth-Century France, 1997-98, cat. no. 34, pp. 167-68, repr. p. 169 (col.).

Toledo Museum of Art, Paris: City of Art, November 6, 2009 - March 14, 2010.

Detroit Institute of Arts, Bitter | Sweet: Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate, Nov. 20, 2016 - March 5, 2017.

Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum; San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Pursuit of Pleasure: Casanova's Europe, August 27, 2017-October 8, 2018.