The celebrated écorchés of honoré Fragonard, part 2: The details of the technique used by Fragonard

Abstract

It is remarkable that the famous écorchés of Honoré Fragonard have survived the centuries to reach us today. Studies carried out by several teams have established details of the technique used by Fragonard that help to explain their longevity. The injection of the vessels was achieved by means of a mixture of mutton tallow and pine resin diluted in essence of turpentine and essential oils. This gave Fragonard a very high success rate. Above all, he did not add pigments to his mixture while injecting the veins, and this facilitated the procedure. The vessels were painted after preservation to give them the vivid colors that we can still see today. Another detail that explains their exceptional conservation is that the varnish used by Fragonard was composed of Venice turpentine, made from larch resin and known to repel insects.

Corrosion casting in anatomy: Visualizing the architecture of hollow structures and surface details

“…Also worth mentioning is the work of Honoré Fragonard and his famous écorchés (second half of the 18th century, Maisons‐Alfort, Paris), in which he used sheep tallow and pine resin as casting medium, which allowed him to work at much lower injection temperatures compared to metals or even bee wax. Furthermore, turpentine was added to the solution to make it more liquid (Degueurce et al, ).…”