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Greuze, Jean-Baptiste
(b Tournus, 21 Aug 1725; d Paris, 21 March 1805). French painter and draughtsman. He was named an associate member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Paris, in 1755 on the strength of a group of paintings that included genre scenes, portraits and studies of expressive heads (têtes d’expression). These remained the essential subjects of his art for the next 50 years, except for a brief, concentrated and unsuccessful experiment with history painting in the late 1760s, which was to affect his later genre painting deeply. Though his art has often been compared with that of Jean-Siméon Chardin in particular and interpreted within the context of NEO-CLASSICISM in general, it stands so strikingly apart from the currents of its time that Greuze’s accomplishments are best described, as they often were by the artist’s contemporaries, as unique. He was greatly admired by connoisseurs, critics and the general public throughout most of his life. His pictures were in the collections of such noted connoisseurs as Ange-Laurent de La Live de Jully, Claude-Henri Watelet and Etienne-François, Duc de Choiseul. For a long period he was in particular favour with the critic Denis Diderot, who wrote about him in the Salon reviews that he published in Melchior Grimm’s privately circulated Correspondance littéraire. His reputation declined towards the end of his life and through the early part of the 19th century, to be revived after 1850, when 18th-century painting returned to favour, by such critics as Théophile Thoré, Arsène Houssaye and, most notably, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt in their book L’Art du dix-huitième siècle. By the end of the century Greuze’s work, especially his many variations on the Head of a Girl, fetched record prices, and his Broken Pitcher (Paris, Louvre) was one of the most popular paintings in the Louvre. The advent of modernism in the early decades of the 20th century totally obliterated Greuze’s reputation. It was only in the 1970s, with Brookner’s monograph, Munhall’s first comprehensive exhibition of the artist’s work, increased sale prices, important museum acquisitions and fresh analyses of his art by young historians, that Greuze began to regain the important place that he merits in the history of French art of the 18th century.
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- Greuze, Jean-Baptiste
- Damery
- France, §I: Introduction
- France, §XII, 4: Patronage: 18th century and Revolutionary period
- France, §XV, 6: Art education: The Ecole des Beaux-Arts and teaching studios in the 19th century
- Morceau de réception
- Paris, §III, 3: Art life and organization, 1715–88
- Paris, §VI, 1(i): Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture: Origins and development
- attributions
- collaboration
- exhibitions
- groups and movements
- patrons and collectors
- Augustin, Jean-Baptiste(-Jacques)
- Canino, Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of (1775-1840)
- Caraman, Duc de
- Catherine II, Empress of Russia (reg 1762-96)
- Cognacq, (Théodore-)Ernest
- Delessert, (Jules-Paul-)Benjamin (1773-1847)
- Demidoff, Nicolas
- Du Barry, (Marie-Jeanne Bécu,) Comtesse
- Houssaye, (François-)Arsène
- La Live de Jully, Ange-Laurent de
- Livois, Marquis de
- Marigny, Marquis de
- McLellan, Archibald
- Morny, Charles-Auguste, Duc de
- Paul I, Emperor of Russia (reg 1796-1801)
- Péreire, Jacob-Emile and Isaac
- Périer, Casimir
- Rushout, John, 2nd Baron Northwick
- Seymour-Conway, Richard, 4th Marquess of Hertford
- Sparre, Gustaf Adolf
- Véri(-Raionard), Louis-Gabriel, Marquis de
- Wille, Jean-Georges
- Yusupov, Nikolay (Borisovich), Prince (1751-1831)
- pupils
- reproductive prints by others
- sponsors
- works
- Angiviller, Comte d’
- Animal subjects, §3: The 18th century
- Classicism, §5: 18th century: Neo-classicism
- Denon, Vivant
- Fancy picture
- Frame, §III, 7: France: Transitional
- France, §III, 4(ii): Painting & graphic arts, c 1715–c 1814: Resurgence of history painting
- Genre, §5: The 18th century
- Genre, §5(ii): The 18th century: France
- Le Lorrain, Louis-Joseph
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