Jean-Baptiste Greuze Tournus 1725 - 1805 Paris

Koenigsberg, Paris (from of old Wildenstein photograph);

Wildenstein & Co. Inc.; private collection, United States.

This impressive Bust of a Young Woman must date from the mid-1770s, when Greuze was moving towards an increasingly classical manner. In its subtle harmonies and smokey atmosphere, it recalls The White Hat, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, as well as in the off-shoulder gown worn by its model, and the similarly-knotted scarf falling around her shoulders. The introduction of black is highly unusual for the time, but not for Greuze.

With this work the artist has demonstrated his renowned skill in rendering the delicacies of flesh tones, building up to the slight impasto on the cheek and nose. Even more impressive is his mastery here in depicting a woman in profil perdu, i.e. turning her head slightly more than three-quarters, so that only a portion of her left eye is visible, and only the slightest area of her left cheek. To render this convincingly requires total control of anatomical perspective, particularly in getting the nose just right, so that the result does not look like a Cubist Picasso.            

Greuze had experimented with the profil perdu in a drawing dating from the mid-1760s (see figure 1). This might be considered a study for the present painting, but it had already left the artist’s studio in 1767, amidst a collection of drawings purchased by Count Betskoy for Catherine II¹.  

A copy of the present Bust of a Young Woman appeared at a sale held by Van Ham Kunstauktionen, Cologne, on November 18, 2005, lot 1573.

We are grateful to Edgar Munhall for confirming the attribution to Greuze, based on first hand inspection, and for preparing this catalogue entry.

1  See F. Monod, L. Hautecoeur, Les Dessins de Greuze conserves à l’Academie des Beaux-Arts de Saint-Pétersbourg, Paris, 1922, no. 114, and I. Novosselskaya, “The Collection of Drawings by Greuze in St. Petersberg,” in E. Munhall, Greuze the Draftsman, exh. cat., New York and London, 2002, pp. 28-38.