Detail from The Canal, Amsterdam, 1889, James McNeill Whistler, The Hunterian, University of Glasgow

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Jean-Baptiste Greuze

Nationality: French
Date of birth: 1725.08.21
Place of birth: Tournus
Date of death: 1805.03.21
Place of death: Paris
Category: artist, printmaker

Identity:

Jean-Baptiste Greuze was a French painter and draughtsman. He married Anne-Gabrielle Babuti, the daughter of a wealthy Parisian bookseller, on 3 February 1759 at St Médard. They had three daughters, one of whom died in infancy.

Life:

Greuze's reputation was founded on his sentimental and moralistic genre paintings and on his portraits and expressive heads. He was elected an associate member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris in 1755. His work lost favour towards the end of his life but saw a revival in popularity in the second half of the nineteenth century with critics such as Théophile Thoré, Arsène Houssaye and Edmond and Jules de Goncourt espousing his cause. By the end of the century his works were reaching high prices in auction.

As an art student in Paris Whistler was granted permission on 3 November 1857 to copy Greuze's La Cruche cassée in the Louvre. Whistler's Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl y038 was compared by Jules Antoine Castagnary to Greuze's The Broken Pitcher (see Copy after Greuze's 'La Cruche cassée' y014).

Bibliography:

De Goncourt, E., and J. de Goncourt, L'Art du dix-huitième siècle, Paris, 1880; Martin, J., and C. Masson, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint et dessiné de J.-B. Greuze, Paris, 1908; Brookner, A., Greuze: The Rise and Fall of an Eighteenth-century Phenomenon, London, 1972; Munhall, E., Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1725-1805, Hartford, 1976-7; Munhall, Edgar, 'Jean-Baptiste Greuze', The Grove Dictionary of Art Online, ed. L. Macy.