Jean-Honoré Fragonard – The Swing
I must admit I chose this piece as much for the location as for the painting. The Wallace Collection is one of London’s best kept secrets – an oasis of elegance and culture a world away from the braying crowds of tourists that populate the blockbuster shows. It’s almost always if not empty then pleasantly calm and afternoon tea in its sunny atrium sitting amongst the wealthy widows nibbling their Battenberg can be a bizarre and often charming experience. Nevertheless when you see beyond the painting’s chintzy, Rococo silliness you can glimpse a narrative that delves in to murky themes of sexual jealousy and carnal obsession, the lightness and frippery of the perfumed female character masking a cruel, primitive goading. Or at least that’s how I read it.