Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 'A Girl', about 1800
About the work
Overview
A young woman gazes dreamily out of the picture, but not directly at us. She appears to be outside in a dark woody landscape. She gathers her semi-translucent shawl about her head but does not seem to have noticed that the front of her flimsy muslin dress has fallen down, revealing her left breast. Her soft brown wavy hair is tied loosely about her head with a pink ribbon. Her averted eyes do not challenge the viewer’s own, allowing us freely to view her body, tantalisingly at once concealed and revealed in this dark, secluded setting.
Greuze creates a deliberately ambiguous image, blurring the line between youth and maturity, innocence and sensuality – a characteristic of his expressive heads that was much admired by his contemporaries. The modelling of the girl’s face, her glistening eyes and areas of thick paint on her sleeve are typical of his individual painting style.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- A Girl
- Artist
- Jean-Baptiste Greuze
- Artist dates
- 1725 - 1805
- Date made
- about 1800
- Medium and support
- oil on wood
- Dimensions
- 45.7 × 38.1 cm
- Acquisition credit
- Bequeathed by Richard Simmons, 1847
- Inventory number
- NG206
- Location
- Not on display
- Collection
- Main Collection
- Previous owners
Provenance
Additional information
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Humphrey Wine, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Eighteenth Century French Paintings’, London 2018; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
Bibliography
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1908J. Martin, Oeuvre de Jean-Baptiste Greuze: Catalogue raisonné, Paris 1908
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1912E. Pilon, J.-B. Greuze: Peintre de la femme et la jeune fille du 18 siècle, Paris 1912
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1912J. Rivers, Greuze and His Models, London 1912
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1913L. Hautecoeur, Greuze, Paris 1913
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1926C. Mauclair, Greuze et son temps, Paris 1926
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1946Martin Davies, National Gallery Catalogues: French School, London 1946
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1957Martin Davies, National Gallery Catalogues: French School, 2nd edn (revised), London 1957
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1965'Head of a Girl by Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805)', Duits Quarterly, IX, 1965
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1972A. Brookner, Greuze: The Rise and Fall of an Eighteen-Century Phenomenon, London 1972
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1976J. Focarino and E. Munhall, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1725-1805 (exh. cat. Wadsworth Athenaeum, 1 December 1976 - 23 January 1977; Palace of the Legion of Honor, 5 March - 1 May 1977; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon, 11 June - 7 August 1977), Hartford 1976
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1980B. Magnusson, 'Greuze and the "peinture morale"', in Thought and Form: Studies in 18th Century Art, Stockholm 1980, pp. 157-68
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1983F. Arquié-Bruley, 'Documents notaries inédits sur Greuze', Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire de l'Art Français, 1983, pp. 125-54
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1984Musées d'art de Clermont-Ferrand, Greuze & Diderot: Vie familiale et éducation dans la seconde moitié du XVIIème siècle (exh. cat. Musée Bargoin, 1984), Clermont-Ferrand 1984
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1998Galerie Koller, Zurich, Gemälde, Aquarelle und Zeichnungen des 19. und 20. Jh., Schweizer Kunst, moderne Graphik, part II, Zurich, 17 June 1998 - 19 June 1998
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1999Christie's South Kensington, Old Master Pictures, London, 11 April 1999
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1999Sotheby's, Important Old Master Paintings, New York, 28 January 1999
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2000C. Rochette, Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805) et les collections du musée Greuze de Tournus, Tournus 2000
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2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
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2005E. Barker, Greuze and the Painting of Sentiment, Cambridge 2005
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2018Wine, Humphrey, National Gallery Catalogues: The Eighteenth Century French Paintings, London 2018
About this record
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.
Images
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