Jean-Baptiste Greuze

As an artist trained at the Académie, Greuze must have made many studies like this one, drawn from the posed model, but apart from a group in the Hermitage, very few such drawings by the artist are known today.¹

This powerful drawing shows a rather developed graphic style when compared with Greuze's early academies, which are characterized by a precise rendering of anatomical details that clearly reflects the teaching of his master, Charles-Joseph Natoire (1700-1777). In the present large sheet the fluidity of the red chalk and the skillful creation of shadows, using parallel strokes orchestrated around the firmly outlined contours of the nude, are testimony to the artist's versatility and talent as a draughtsman.  Greuze's shading of the background with tighter and looser hatched lines results in powerful contrasts of light and dark, and animates the pose of the figure while also emphasising its sculptural qualities. The nude is flooded by direct light coming from above and from the right. The addition of windblown hair and the piece of cloth blowing to the right add further movement to the model. The ground is suggested with just a few lines.

Greuze must have made use of these academies as an inspiration when developing new compositions. Indeed, a very similar standing figure appears in a compositional drawing in the Louvre: Le départ de la jeune mariée.² 

 1. E. Munhall, Greuze the Draftsman, exh. cat., New York, The Frick Collection, 2002, p. 42, no. 3, reproduced and fig. 27

2. Paris, Louvre, inv. no. RF 40472