Jeroboam Offering Sacrifice for the Idol

Jean-Honoré Fragonard  [ 5 April 1732 – 22 August 1806) was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific artists active in the last decades of the Ancien Régime, Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings (not counting drawings and etchings), of which only five are dated. Among his most popular works are genre paintings conveying an atmosphere of intimacy and veiled eroticism. 

Though not yet a student of the Academy, Fragonard gained the Prix de Rome in 1752 with a painting of Jeroboam Sacrificing to Idols.  Admirers acknowledge his position among the all-time masters of French painting. The influence of his handling of local color and expressive, confident brushstroke on the Impressionists (particularly his grand niece, Berthe Morisot, and Renoir) is undoubtable. 

According to the Books of Kings, Jeroboam was the first king of the break-away ten tribes or Northern Kingdom of Israel, over whom he reigned twenty-two years.  Fragonard's painting depicts Jeroboam offering sacrifice for the idol of the Golden Calf. While he was engaged in offering incense, a prophet from Judah appeared before him with a warning message from the Lord. Attempting to arrest the prophet for his bold words of defiance, his raised hand was "dried up," and the altar before which he stood was rent asunder.

With this painting Fragonard won the Grand Prix de l'Académie Royale in 1752.  This oil on canvas measures  115 x 145 cm and is housed in the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris.