Female Portrait by Jean-Baptiste Greuze
Female Portrait by Jean-Baptiste Greuze

Female Portrait

Female Portrait by French Painter Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725 – 1805); a portraitist, genre and historical painter.

This is another portrait bust painting by Greuze with a similar pose to his other pieces, that shows a young brunette wearing an off shoulder white blouse with a blue cloak wrapped around her.

She is in a seated position and has her head slightly tilted to the left as she looks sky with a slight look of despair on her face, as her hair flows over her right shoulder and around her left, with her set against a grey background.

This is a remastered digital art old masters reproduction of a public domain image that is available as a canvas print online.

The Below Information Is Derived From NGA.gov

Jean was born in Tournus, France in 1725 as the sixth son of a master tiler who recognized his talent at a very early age; sending him to Lyon, France to study with the French Portrait Painter Charles Grandon (1691 – 1762).

At about the age of 30 he left Lyon, and traveled to Paris, France to study at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture or the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture; which at the time was the premier art institution of France during the latter part of the Ancien Régime (Old Regiem ~1500 to 1789), until it was abolished in 1793 during the French Revolution.

Though highly talented and very successful during the 1760s and 1770s, having patrons of the likes of the Marquise de Pompadour (1721 – 1764), Empress Catherine II of Russia (r. 1762 – 1796), and Ange Laurent de La Live de Jully (1725 – 1779); his rebellious nature and conflicts with Academy and Salon officials would prove to be his misfortune; especially after his marriage to Anne Marie Babuty in 1759; which would prove to be a disaster for him, as she was known to have had various affairs with his students and sitters, which caused him loss of income and public humiliation.

When the marriage ended 34 years later his wife received a substantial settlement, which left him in dire financial straights and by the time of his death in 1805 at the age of 80 he was nearly broke.

+1
0
+1
0
+1
1
+1
1
+1
0
0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments