The Storm

Fragonard painted this around 1759 in Rome, during his five years at the French Academy there. The subject is small and rural. A cart piled high under a flapping sheet has stuck on rough ground, men heave at the wheel while one raises a stick, and a whole flock of sheep presses around them. A dark storm fills most of the sky. The second French title, La Charrette embourbée, means the cart stuck in the mud. That is also the situation of a well-known fable by La Fontaine, where a carter calls on heaven for help and is told to start by helping himself. In 2026 the canvas travelled to Valence, in the Rhône valley, for an exhibition on Fragonard, his friend the painter Hubert Robert, and their feeling for nature.