Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 'A Girl with a Lamb', before 1775
About the work
Overview
A young girl tenderly holds a lamb, which is decorated with a blue ribbon. Her loose-fitting white chemise has slipped off her shoulder. The girl and lamb occupy the immediate foreground, making them seem close to us and giving the picture a feeling of intimacy.
The lamb here probably symbolises innocence, patience, gentleness and humility. However, Greuze’s painting sends mixed messages as although these qualities are also suggested by the girl’s youth and seemingly innocent gaze, her bare shoulder and provocatively parted lips suggest a certain knowing sensuality.
Greuze’s pictures of young women cuddling pets, implying their ability to feel emotion, relate to the eighteenth-century cult of ’sensibility' or sentiment fostered by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and others. This painting is unfinished and is not a portrait. Greuze’s single-figure paintings were highly sought-after, relatively quick to produce, and made good money for him.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- A Girl with a Lamb
- Artist
- Jean-Baptiste Greuze
- Artist dates
- 1725 - 1805
- Date made
- before 1775
- Medium and support
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 54.6 × 44.5 cm
- Acquisition credit
- Bequeathed by Mary Mohl, 1884
- Inventory number
- NG1154
- Location
- Not on display
- Collection
- Main Collection
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
-
1946Martin Davies, National Gallery Catalogues: French School, London 1946
-
1957Martin Davies, National Gallery Catalogues: French School, 2nd edn (revised), London 1957
-
2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
-
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.