Add to Collection

Add this item to an existing or new collection.
Harvard Art Museums
Incorrect Username, Email, or Password
This object does not yet have a description.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1965.290
People
Jean-Baptiste Greuze, French (Tournus 1725 - 1805 Paris)
Title
Seated Female Nude
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
c. 1767
Culture
French
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/296778

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Red chalk on cream antique laid paper, framing lines in black ink, laid down
Dimensions
44.5 × 36.7 cm (17 1/2 × 14 7/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: lower right, red chalk: JBG.
  • watermark:
  • inscription: mount, lower left, black chalk: 78
  • inscription: mount, lower left, red chalk: 8/ovon [“von” underlined]
  • inscription: mount, lower center, black chalk: Mayn figure de G [illegible]
  • inscription: mount, lower center, red chalk: Greuze
  • inscription: monogrammed, lower right, red chalk: JBG.

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
The artist’s estate; his daughter, Caroline Greuze, Paris, by descent; her estate sale, Commendeur, Paris, 25-26 January 1843, lot 29; Jean-Baptiste Delbecq, Ghent; his estate sale, Jacquin, Paris, 20 January 1845 and the following days, lot 104; Émile Straus, Paris (by 1886); his estate sale, Galerie Georges Petit (Lair-Dubreuil), Paris, 3-4 June 1929, lot 72; Martin Birnbaum, New York, sold; to Meta and Paul J. Sachs, Cambridge (by 1929), bequest; to Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Meta and Paul J. Sachs, inv. no. 1965.290

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Meta and Paul J. Sachs
Accession Year
1965
Object Number
1965.290
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.

Publication History

  • Jean Martin and Charles Masson, Catalogue Raisonné de l'Œuvre Peint et Dessiné de Jean-Baptiste Greuze, H. Piazza (Paris, 1908), cat. no. 1310, p. 80
  • Claire Batigne, Exhibition of French Art, 1200-1900, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts (London, 1932), cat. no. 698 or 781
  • Margaret Scott, An Exhibition of Old-Master Drawings for the Benefit of Public Health Nursing Milk and Emergency Fund, exh. cat., Junior League (Pittsburgh, 1933), cat. no. 15, p. 14
  • Jeanne Lejeaux, Exposition de l’art français au XVIIIe siècle, exh. cat., Palais de Charlottenborg (Copenhagen, 1935), cat. no. 396, p. 119
  • Chefs-d'oeuvre de l'art français, exh. cat., Petit Palais, Paris (Paris, France, 1937), no. 547
  • Seymour de Ricci, Les dessins français: les chefs d’œuvre de l’art français à l’Exposition Internationale de 1937, Librairie des Arts Décoratifs (Paris, 1937), cat. no. 20, n.p.
  • Agnes Mongan and Paul J. Sachs, Drawings in the Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, 1940), vol. 1, cat. no. 623, p. 331, vol. 3, p. viii
  • Annemarie Henle, Master Drawings: An Exhibition of Drawings from American Museums and Private Collections, exh. cat., Palace of Fine Arts, Golden Gate International Exposition (San Francisco, 1940), cat. no. 49, pp. 17, 77
  • Hans Tietze, European Master Drawings in the United States, J. J. Augustin, Inc. (New York, 1947), cat. no. 105, pp. 210-11
  • Agnes Mongan, French Drawings of Five Centuries from the Collection of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, 1951), cat. no. 19, p. 15
  • Werner R. Deusch, Die Aktzeichnung in der Europäischen Kunst, Brüder Auer Verlag (Bonn, 1952), cat. no. 63, pp. 26-27, 103
  • François Boucher and Philippe Jaccottet, Le dessin français au XVIIIe siècle, Mermod (Lausanne, 1952), pp. 79, 175
  • An Exhibition of Drawings, exh. cat., Colby College, Miller Library (Waterville, 1956), cat. no. 13, n.p.
  • James Watrous, The Craft of Old-Master Drawings, University of Wisconsin Press (Madison, WI, 1957), pp. 120-22
  • Agnes Mongan, De Clouet a Matisse: Dessins français des collections américaines, exh. cat., Musée de l'Orangerie (Paris, 1958), cat. no. 60, n.p.
  • Agnes Mongan, Van Clouet tot Matisse: tentoonstelling van franse tekeningen uit amerikaanse collecties, exh. cat., Museum Boymans (Rotterdam, 1958), cat. no. 60, n.p.
  • Agnes Mongan, French Drawings from American Collections: Clouet to Matisse, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1959), cat. no. 60, p. 58
  • "Acquisitions", Acquisitions (Fogg Art Museum), ed. John Coolidge, Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, 1965), pp. 17-58, p. 31
  • Edgar Munhall, “Les dessins de Greuze pour ‘Septime Sévère’", L’Œil, L’Œil (Paris, 1965), no. 124, April, pp. 23-29, 59, pp. 24-25, 27
  • Edgar Munhall and Joseph Focarino, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1725-1805, exh. cat., Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (Hartford, 1976-1977), cat. no. 59, pp. 132-33
  • Rüdiger Klessmann, "Review: Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1725-1805", Pantheon, Pantheon (1977), vol. 35, pp. 174-175, April/May/June, p. 175
  • Nathan Goldstein, A Guide to 100 American and European Drawings: A Portfolio, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1982), p. 21
  • Debora Mayer, "Technical Examination of Red Chalk" (thesis (certificate in conservation), Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, 1982), Unpublished, pp. 6, 59
  • Hervé Oursel, ed., Au temps de Watteau, Fragonard et Chardin: Les Pays-Bas et les peintres français du XVIIIe siècle, exh. cat., Palais des Beaux Arts de Lille (Lille, 1985), p. 107
  • Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Drawing on Tradition: The Lost Legacy of Academic Figure Studies, Harvard University Art Museums Gallery Series, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, 1994), no. 12, cat. no. 30, pp. 2, 612
  • Edward Saywell, Behind the Line: The Materials and Techniques of Old Master Drawings, Harvard University Art Museums Bulletin, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, 1998), vol. 6, no. 2, cat. no. 5, pp. 9-10, 26, 34, 36
  • Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Barbara Brejon de Lavergnée, Jean-Francois Méjanès, Alain Mérot, Margaret Morgan Grasselli, Sophie Raux-Carpentier, William W. Robinson, Marianne Roland Michel, and Pierre Rosenberg, Mastery & Elegance: Two Centuries of French Drawings from the Collection of Jeffrey E. Horvitz, exh. cat., ed. Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 56-57, 72 n.17
  • Edgar Munhall, Greuze the Draftsman, exh. cat., Merrell Publishers Ltd. / The Frick Collection (New York, 2002), cat. no. 64, pp. 184-85
  • Bernadette Fort, "The Sketch as Transgression: Greuze's 'Roman Charity'", The Ruin and the Sketch in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Peter Wagner, Frédéric Ogée, Robert Mankin, and Achim Hescher, Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier (Trier, 2008), LAPASEC, vol. 2, pp. 153-77, pp. 172-73, 177
  • Ewa Lajer-Burcharth and Elizabeth M. Rudy, ed., Drawing: The Invention of a Modern Medium, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 147-148, 283, repr. p. 144 as fig. 1
  • Alvin L. Clark, Jr. and Edouard Kopp, French Drawings from the Age of Claude, Poussin, Watteau, and Fragonard: Highlights from the Collection of the Harvard Art Museums, Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2022), cat. no. 79, repr., p. 17
  • Yuriko Jackall, Jean-Baptiste Greuze et ses têtes d'expression: La fortune d'un genre, Institut National d'Historie de l'arte (Paris, 2022), pp. 210-211, repr. p. 211 as fig. 34

Exhibition History

  • Exhibition of French Art, 1200-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 01/01/1932 - 03/05/1932
  • An Exhibition of Old-Master Drawings for the Benefit of Public Health Nursing Milk and Emergency Fund, Junior League, Pittsburgh, 12/13/1933 - 01/06/1934
  • Exposition de l’art français au XVIIIe siècle, Palais de Charlottenborg, 08/25/1935 - 10/06/1935
  • Chefs d'oeuvres de l'art française, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Paris, Paris, 01/01/1937 - 12/31/1937
  • Master Drawings: An Exhibition of Drawings from American Museums and Private Collections, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 01/01/1940 - 12/31/1940
  • Five Centuries of Drawings, Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Montreal, 10/01/1953 - 11/30/1953
  • An Exhibition of Drawings, Colby College, Miller Library, Waterville, 04/27/1956 - 05/23/1956
  • French Drawings from American Collections: Clouet to Matisse, Museum Boymans, Rotterdam, 07/31/1958 - 09/28/1958; Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, 10/24/1958 - 01/02/1959; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 02/03/1959 - 03/15/1959
  • Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1725-1805, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, 12/01/1976 - 01/23/1977; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 03/05/1977 - 05/01/1977; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon, Dijon, 06/04/1977 - 07/31/1977
  • Drawing on Tradition: The Lost Legacy of Academic Figure Studies, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/19/1994 - 01/29/1995
  • Behind the Line: The Materials and Techniques of Old Master Drawings, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 10/03/1998 - 12/30/1998
  • Greuze the Draftsman, The Frick Collection, New York, 05/14/2002 - 08/04/2002; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 09/10/2002 - 12/01/2002
  • Drawing: The Invention of a Modern Medium, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/21/2017 - 05/07/2017

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu