The Musical Contest

The Musical Contest is a c.1755 genre painting by the French artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Rococo in style, it is part of the tradition of fête galante pictures popular in the eighteenth century. In a garden scene, two suitors compete for the attention of a woman by staging a musical contest.
Today the painting is in the Wallace Collection in London having been acquired in 1842 by the Marquess of Hertford. It was mistakenly identified as being by Frangonard's teacher François Boucher.