This beautifully preserved and highly finished sheet by Jean-Baptiste Greuze is a quintessential example of an important theme that the artist returned to throughout his career, that of childhood behavior and how, in Greuze’s opinion, good or bad behavior at a young age is typically the prelude to our actions as adults.

Le Bénédicité is set in a sparsely decorated room comparable, both in setting and technique, to that depicted in Greuze’s drawing for The Motherly Reprimand.1 To the left of the composition, through an open window, comes a powerful shaft of natural light, which not only serves to illuminate the facial features of the mother and her two, seemingly pious young children, but also highlights the disarray in which this young woman is living, with plates scattered across the floor and pots and bottles strewn over the table. The two children, the elder standing while the younger sits, have their hands clasped in prayer, as their mother seizes a pot and readies a spoon, presumably to feed them a soup of some variety. The scene poses many contradictions as both children, obedient and God fearing, are favorably portrayed by Greuze. The young mother, attractive though she may appear, is evidently responsible for her shambolic surroundings and Greuze alludes to her potentially questionable morals by including on the wall, next to the window, an open bird cage. This powerful symbol, frequently employed by Greuze, such as in his depiction of The Spoiled Child,2 was clearly derived from his interest in Dutch 17th century art, in which the open bird cage symbolizes both the loss of innocence and a sinful existence.

Fig. 1 Pierre François Laurent, Le Bénédicité, engraving

While no painting of this distinctive composition appears to survive, many of Greuze’s most highly finished drawings, such as the present sheet, were created instead as the basis for engraved compositions which served as a lucrative source of revenue for the artist. This suggestion is overwhelmingly supported by the existence of an engraving (fig.1) executed in 1772 by Pierre François Laurent (1739-1809) after Greuze, which bears a dedication to Marie Louis Joseph d'Albert d'Ailly, Duc de Chaulnes (1741-1792) (see Provenance), with the composition perfectly mirroring that of the present work.3

1. See E. Munhall, Greuze the Draftsman, exhib. cat., New York, Frick Collection, 2002, p. 22, figs. 11 and 12, reproduced and p. 114

2. Ibid., pp. 112-114, no. 33, reproduced

3. The British Museum, London, inv. no. 1917,1208.1929