How does The Stolen Kiss (Fragonard) elucidate its History?
The earliest dated mention of The Stolen Kiss comes from the June 1788 issue of the Mercure de France magazine, where an engraving by Nicolas François Regnault of Fragonard's painting was advertised as a pendant to The Bolt.: 95 Shortly later in the 1790s, the work was purchased by Stanisław August Poniatowski, the last monarch of the first Rzechpospolita; it was present in the catalogue of the Royal Picture Gallery at the Lazienki Palace in Warsaw in 1795. Perhaps it was bought at one of the auctions, which sold goods of the French aristocracy following the Revolution of 1789. This would explain the silence of the sources about the acquisition of the work and its certain formal and thematic incompatibility with the other works of the collection. Poniatowski highly valued The Stolen Kiss, and was willing to have it taken from Warsaw to Saint Petersburg upon his abdication in 1795; the shipment did not take place, though. 
After Poniatowski's death in 1798, his collection at the Lazienki Palace was formally succeeded by the nephew, Józef Poniatowski, and later by the latter's sister Maria Teresa, who sold the palace in 1817 to Tsar Alexander I, effectively making The Stolen Kiss part of the Russian imperial collection. The painting remained in the Lazienki Palace until 1895, when it was transferred to the Hermitage following a report from the imperial collection curator Andrei Somov, who recommended The Stolen Kiss, with four other paintings from Stanisław August's collection, to be present in the Hermitage on conservation and accessibility concerns.After regaining independence in 1918 first, and later after the end of World War II in 1945, the Polish government made diplomatic efforts to recover the painting. In the light of international law and arrangements with the authorities of the Soviet Union, the painting as work of art of national importance taken by Russians from Poland in the 19th century, or during World War II, was a subject to legal restitution. However, the Soviet authorities refused to release the painting, retaining it in the Hermitage collection, and arbitrarily compensated it (among with several others valuable paintings) with several works of lesser value. In 1922, The Stolen Kiss was specifically compensated with the smaller Polish Woman (now in the National Museum in Warsaw), historically attributed to Jean-Antoine Watteau, originally purchased into the Russian imperial collection in 1772 as part of the Crozat collection.
The Bolt Antoine Watteau Polish Woman Mercure de France Revolution of 1789 Tsar Alexander I Alexander I Stanisław August Poniatowski Warsaw Maria Teresa Lazienki Palace Saint Petersburg National Museum Józef Poniatowski Soviet Union World War II Jean-Antoine Watteau