Portrait Of A Young Woman Oil Painting Circle Of Jean-baptiste Greuze

Portrait of a Young Woman oil painting circle of Jean-Baptiste Greuze

Greuze was a French painter who achieved great success at the Salon of 1755 with a group of paintings including The Father Reading the Bible to His Children (Louvre, Paris). He later gained enormous popularity with similar sentimental and melodramatic genre scenes. His work was hailed by Diderot as a "morality in painting" and as representing the highest ideal of painting in his day. He also wanted to succeed as a history painter, but when he submitted his Septimius Severus reproducing Caracalla (1769, Louvre) to the Royal Academy as a reception piece, he was accepted only as a genre painter, which put him in great embarrassment. Much of his later work consists of paintings of titillating young girls, which contain thinly veiled sexual allusions beneath their mawkish innocence: The Broken Jug (Louvre), for example, alludes to the loss of virginity.

Additional information:

Title: Portrait of a Young Woman
Medium: Original oil on canvas
Signature: Unsigned
Provenance: Private French collection Fontainebleau
Canvas dimensions: 49 cm x 62 cm
Frame dimensions: 66 cm x 78 cm
Condition: Acceptable original condition considering its age (old restorations, relining and visible wear)
Artist: Circle or possible attribution to Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805)

Condition:
Acceptable original condition considering its age, signs of old restorations, relining and visible wear (should be cleaned and restored by an approved restorer to improve the contrast and real potential of this magnificent painting)