The Bolt

The Bolt (French: Le Verrou), also known as The Lock, is a gallant scene painted by Jean-Honoré Fragonard in 1777. It is one of the most famous paintings by the painter, an authentic example of eighteenth-century painting.

The common interpretation suggests that the scene depicts two lovers entwined in a bedroom, the man locking the door. The painting is preserved in the Louvre Museum, in the section of the Department of Paintings devoted to eighteenth-century French painting on the second floor of the Sully wing.

It stands together with some of the most famous pictorial masterpieces of the same period, in a chronologically organized path.

This painting, a true symbol of the libertine spirit of the 18th century, reflects the state of mind adopted by the painters of the era, notably that of François Boucher, one of Fragonard's teachers and a great representative of rococo painting.

Collection: Department of Paintings of the Louvre