Greuze, JEAN-BAPTISTE,

Greuze, JEAN-BAPTISTE, genre- and portrait-painter, was born at Tournus, near Mâcon, on 21st August 1725. He received instruction in art from Gromdon, a painter of Lyons, who took him to Paris, where he studied in the life-school of the Academy, and produced a subject-picture of such excellence—'A Father explaining the Bible to his Children'—that much doubt was expressed as to its being the work of so young an artist. His skill, however, was amply proved by productions which followed, and his 'Blind Man Cheated' procured his admission as an Associate of the Academy in 1755. In that year he visited Italy with the Abbé Gougenot, and on his return exhibited in 1757 several Italian subjects, but having failed to comply with the regulations of the Academy he was interdicted from contributing to the salon. Having painted in 1769 his 'Severus reproaching Caracalla,' now in the Louvre, he was readmitted as a genre-painter, instead of to the higher class of historical painters, and upon this he indignantly withdrew. He was the friend of Diderot, who praised his productions in his criticisms of the salon; but in the days of the Directorate and the classical revival of David his works were little esteemed; and he died in poverty in Paris, 21st March 1805. His art possesses charming qualities of delicacy and grace, but is marred by its triviality, by the insincerity of its sentiment, and by its pursuit of mere prettiness. He is seen at his best in his domestic interiors with figures, and especially in such fancy studies of girls as 'The Broken Pitcher' in the Louvre, the 'Innocence' and 'Girl with Doves' in Sir Richard Wallace's collection, and 'Girl with Dead Canary' in Scottish National Gallery. See monograph by Normand (1892).