Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805)

Aliases: J. B. Greuse; Zhan-Batist Grëz

Professions: Painter; Etcher; Miniature painter

• 

  

  JEAN-BAPTISTE GREUZE (TOURNUS 1725-1805 PARIS)

• 

  

  JEAN-BAPTISTE GREUZE

• 

  

  JEAN-BAPTISTE GREUZE (TOURNUS 1725-1805 PARIS)

• 

  

  Jean-Baptiste Greuze (Tournus 1725-1805 Paris)

• Jean-Baptiste Greuze Related Content
• Jean-Baptiste Greuze at Auction Now
• Jean-Baptiste Greuze Sold at Auction

Jean-Baptiste Greuze Biography

(b Tournus, 21 Aug 1725; d Paris, 21 March 1805). French painter and draughtsman. He was named an associate member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Paris, in 1755 on the strength of a group of paintings that included genre scenes, portraits and studies of expressive heads (têtes d’expression). These remained the essential subjects of his art for the next 50 years, except for a brief, concentrated and unsuccessful experiment with history painting in the late 1760s, which was to affect his later genre painting deeply. Though his art has often been compared with that of Jean-Siméon Chardin in particular and interpreted within the context of NEO-CLASSICISM in general, it stands so strikingly apart from the currents of its time that Greuze’s accomplishments are best described, as they often were by the artist’s contemporaries, as unique. He was greatly admired by connoisseurs, critics and the general public throughout most of his life. His pictures were in the collections of such noted connoisseurs as Ange-Laurent de La Live de Jully, Claude-Henri Watelet and Etienne-François, Duc de Choiseul. For a long period he was in particular favour with the critic Denis Diderot, who wrote about him in the Salon reviews that he published in Melchior Grimm’s privately circulated Correspondance littéraire . His reputation declined towards the end of his life and through the early part of the 19th century, to be revived after 1850, when 18th-century painting returned to favour, by such critics as Théophile Thoré, Arsène Houssaye and, most notably, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt in their book L’Art du dix-huitième siècle . By the end of the century Greuze’s work, especially his many variations on the Head of a Girl , fetched record prices, and his Broken Pitcher (Paris, Louvre) was one of the most popular paintings in the Louvre. The advent of modernism in the early decades of the 20th century totally obliterated Greuze’s reputation. It was only in the 1970s, with Brookner’s monograph, Munhall’s first comprehensive exhibition of the artist’s work, increased sale prices, important museum acquisitions and fresh analyses of his art by young historians, that Greuze began to regain the important place that he merits in the history of French art of the 18th century.

Back to the Top

Jean-Baptiste Greuze Related Content

• Auction Houses

  Genres/Artists

• Featured Houses (29)

  • Adam's
  • Alex Cooper Auctioneers
  • Artcurial - Briest - Poulain - F. Tajan
  • Auktionshaus Schlosser
  • Bonhams
  • Braswell Galleries
  • Bruun Rasmussen
  • Doyle New York
  • Dresdener Auktionshaus Günther
  • Fischer Auktionen
  • Gray's Auctioneers
  • Grogan & Company
  • Hampel Fine Art Auctions
  • Heritage Auctions
  • High Road Auctions
  • Koller Auctions
  • Leclere
  • Lempertz
  • New Orleans Auction Galleries
  • Piasa
  • Pierre Bergé & Associés
  • Rossini Maison de Ventes aux Enchères
  • Skinner
  • Sloans & Kenyon
  • Stahl
  • Tajan
  • Van Ham
  • Waddington's
  • Westbridge Fine Art Auction House
  • Other Houses (65)
  • Aberdeen-Auctions
  • Ader
  • Ader-Picard-Tajan
  • Auktionshaus Dr. Fischer
  • Auktionshaus Mehlis
  • Auktionshaus Quentin GmbH
  • Auktionskammare Uppsala
  • Beaussant-Lefevre
  • Bloomsbury Auctions
  • Bonhams
  • Cambi Casa d'Aste
  • Cato Crane & Company
  • Chayette-Cheval
  • Chorley's
  • Christie's
  • Christies East
  • Couturier-de Nicolay
  • DVC Antwerp
  • Delorme-Fraysse
  • Denesle
  • Dorotheum
  • Drouot Estimations
  • Ellekilde
  • Ferri
  • Gabus
  • Galerie Bassenge
  • Hallands Auktionsverk
  • Hargesheimer & Günther
  • Hugo Ruef
  • J P Humbert Auctioneers Ltd
  • Jackson's International
  • Jean Louis Picard
  • John Nicholsons
  • Jurg Stuker
  • Libert-Castor
  • Lots Road Auctions
  • Marc Kohn
  • Mathias
  • McTears
  • Meissner-Neumann, Aukcni Dum
  • Mercier
  • Michaan's Auctions
  • Millon & Associes
  • Millon-Robert
  • Morton Casa de Subastas
  • Nagel Auktionen
  • Neret-Minet
  • Norden
  • Palais des Beaux-Arts
  • Phillips
  • Priollaud-Lavoissiere
  • Renard
  • Ribeyre-Baron
  • Rieunier-Bailly-Pommery
  • Rieunier-Bailly-Pommery-Mathias
  • Rosebery's
  • Roumillat's Antiques and Auctions
  • Shapes Auctioneers & Valuers
  • Sotheby's
  • Sothebys Arcade
  • South Eastern Auctions
  • Stockholms Auktionsverket
  • Stroud Auction Rooms Ltd.
  • Vincent Waple
  • William J Jenack Auctioneers

• Rococo (6)

  • Francois Boucher
  • Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin
  • Jean-Honore Fragonard
  • Nicolas Lancret
  • Louis Michel Van Loo
  • Antoine Watteau

Back to the Top