L'Amour triomphant

Triumphant Love (c. 1780-90), in the Musée Carnavalet in Paris, is a late allegorical painting that presents Cupid or the personification of Love in triumph. The painting dates from the twilight of the Rococo era, when the frivolous subjects and sensuous palette that Fragonard championed were being displaced by the austere classicism of David's revolutionary aesthetic. Fragonard continued to paint in his characteristic style even as political and cultural upheaval transformed French society, and his late works carry a bittersweet quality — the last flowering of a civilization about to be swept away.

The mythological composition retains Fragonard's characteristic warmth and fluid handling, though the subject shows awareness of the grander, more heroic themes favored in the Revolutionary era.