Cocktails with a Curator: Fragonard's Progress of Love Series, Part Two

In this week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon maps the century-long journey of Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s Progress of Love series from Paris to Provence to London to New York. Fragonard’s career faltered because of his association with the ancien régime, and the Progress of Love was in many respects his last great accomplishment before he died in penury in 1806. In 2021, visitors will be able to experience three of the canvases for the first time in decades when the series is displayed in its entirety at Frick Madison. For today's episode, Xavier has paired this fourteen-canvas parable of love with a mixed drink suitable for the occasion, a brandy-spiked Champagne Cocktail.

Cocktail Recipe

Champagne Cocktail
3 oz. champagne
1/3 oz. brandy
1 sugar cube
2 dashes of Angostura bitters
1 maraschino cherry

Mocktail

2/3 chilled ginger ale
1/3 grapefruit juice