Jean Honoré is the son of Marco Fragonard, a glove-maker, and Françoise Petit. After the death of his younger brother Joseph at ten months old, he remained an only child. Jean Honoré Fragonard left his native city at the age of six to settle with his family in Paris, where most of his career would unfold. He first distinguished himself in the serious genre and in 1752 produced his painting of Jeroboam sacrificing to idols (Paris, École de Beaux-Arts) which was justly admired. This painting won him the Prix de Rome. But, despairing of reaching the forefront in this genre, he left it for the erotic genre, in which he achieved great success, he soon became the fashionable painter, and amassed a great fortune which the French Revolution made him lose.