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JEAN-HONORÉ FRAGONARD (1732 - 1806) The Romance of Love and Youth is the title which has been given to the set of decorative panels which were begun in 1772 for the Pavilion of Louveciennes, which Louis XV. was building for Mme. du Barry. In one of the rare letters left by Fragonard, dated March 29th, 1773, reference is made to these paintings, as occupying him to the exclusion of other work ordered by the King. They were never put in place in the pavilion for which they were designed; the reason alleged being that Mme. du Barry, displeased with the subject of the panel entitled L'Abondon, declined to receive them, and they were thrown on the artist's hands. Fragonard kept them in his studio for twenty years, when, in 1793, he fled from the horrors and dangers of the Revolution to the shelter of his friend Maubert, as Grasse, in Southern France, taking the panels with him. He returned to Paris after the Terror, and died there neglected and almost forgotten, in 1806. The panels were left at Grasse; and they remained there practically unknown until 1898, when they were sold at auction by M. Malvilain, the grandson of M. Maubert. Messrs. Agnew were their purchasers; and in the autumn of the same year they were exhibited in London, where the late Mr. J. P. Morgan bought them. They were afterwards removed to the Metropolitan Museum, New York, and exhibited there in a room specially designed for them. On Mr. Morgan's death the panels came into the present ownership. 109