Young Girl Reading

In about 1769, Jean Honoré Fragonard (French, 1732 - 1806) painted a group of works known today as his fantasy figures: vibrant canvases showing individual models garbed in fancy dress and rendered in notably loose brushwork and bright colors. Among the most beloved works in his oeuvre, these pictures are also the most mysterious and have therefore prompted the most debate—produced for unknown reasons, perhaps representing real individuals, perhaps not.

The Gallery’s Young Girl Reading—a representation of a demure model in a lemon-yellow dress seated at a window ledge, a book in one upraised hand—has always been loosely associated with the fantasy figures on formal terms. On the one hand, comp...