The Swing was commissioned by a courtier who wanted himself depicted looking up his mistress's skirt as she swung above. A bishop pushes the swing in the background. The original commissioner first approached another painter, who refused the subject as undignified. Fragonard accepted.

He was born in Grasse, in Provence, in 1732. He trained under Boucher, the leading Rococo painter, won the Prix de Rome, and spent five years in Italy studying Tiepolo and the Baroque illusionists. He painted so-called figures de fantaisie, full portraits, in about an hour each. He was enormously prolific: over 550 paintings are attributed to him.

The Revolution destroyed his client base. The aristocracy who bought his paintings were dead, exiled, or ruined. Jacques-Louis David, the leading Revolutionary painter and stylistically his opposite, intervened on his behalf. David got Fragonard appointed to an administrative arts committee, which likely saved his life. This is remarkable: David was sending former aristocrats to the guillotine while protecting their favourite painter. Fragonard also helped organise what would become the Louvre's collection.

He lost his position under Napoleon and died in 1806. The story that he died eating an ice on a hot day is probably anecdotal but frequently repeated. His reputation collapsed after death and was not revived for fifty years.