970 - "Portrait of a Young Lady," Jean-Baptiste Greuze? 18th-century French school

"Portrait of a Young Lady," Jean-Baptiste Greuze? 18th-century French school Oil on paper mounted on canvas, with an important period frame. Framed dimensions: 53 x 44 cm; canvas dimensions: 34 x 29 cm. It is accompanied by a comparative technical report. An exceptional discovery of the oil version of “Portrait of a Young Lady,” of which only the pastel version was previously known—from a private collection in New York and auctioned at Christie’s in 2010. Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725, Tournus – 1805, Paris) studied painting in Grandon’s studio in Lyon. Greuze moved to Paris in 1750 and enrolled, as a student of Natoire, at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. His popularity was cemented by other melodramatic paintings depicting scenes of young provincial peasants. One of his greatest artistic supporters was Diderot; the art critic lavished praise on his paintings for the moralism of his images. Among his greatest successes is *The Village Wedding* (*Acordée de village*), presented at the 1761 Salon, in which he once again depicts a bourgeois rural interior. Among his notable works were the highly successful “Father of a Family Explaining the Bible to His Children,” created in 1755, as well as “The Death of the Paralytic” from 1763, a painting depicting an elderly father on his deathbed surrounded by his family. This painting is related to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s novel, *La nouvelle Héloïse*, published that same year. After achieving great success with the public and critics, he began to produce history painting, the highest-ranking genre within official painting. His first work in this vein is the so-called *Seventh-Severe*. Contrary to his intentions, this piece became a source of conflict with the Academy, since not only was it rejected from the competition, but it also earned him the enmity and devastating criticism of Denis Diderot. Greuze painted numerous portraits and faced significant criticism for his libertine paintings. The French ...