The Return of the Drove

Fragonard's Return of the Drove from 1769 belongs to his pastoral subjects depicting rural agricultural life with the golden warmth of an Arcadian vision. Cattle and livestock droves returning at evening — a motif drawn from Dutch and Flemish landscape tradition and from the Roman Campagna he had studied firsthand — gave Fragonard opportunity to combine the drama of animal movement with atmospheric landscape effects. By the late 1760s, Fragonard was exploring a wider range of subjects than his earlier Rococo decorative work, and pastoral landscapes represented one direction of that expansion.

The drove of cattle provides a moving mass that generates both depth and atmospheric energy in the composition. Fragonard's loose, gestural brushwork captures the animals' varied textures and movements with the rapid notational efficiency of a painter trained in quick observation.