Signed, dated, and inscribed (lower right): Greuze f. Roma / 1756
This picture was painted in Rome, but despite the Italian costumes and setting, the source of the subject is a seventeenth-century Dutch painting by Frans van Mieris the Elder, "The Broken Eggs" (State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg), which Greuze knew through an engraving. The broken eggs symbolize the loss of virginity. The little boy trying to repair one of the eggs represents the uncomprehending innocence of childhood.
This picture attracted favorable comment when exhibited in Paris at the Salon of 1757. One critic noted that the young girl had a pose so noble that she could embellish a history painting. Its pendant was "The Neapolitan Gesture" of 1757 (Worcester Art Museum) in which the same four models appear, but the seducer is foiled by the old woman.
This picture was made for abbé Gougenot in 1756, shortly after Greuze arrived in Rome. The artist painted a pendant to "Broken Eggs" for Gougenot in 1757. "The Neapolitan Gesture" (Worcester Art Museum) includes the same four models in a different tableau, which also suggests compromised virtue. A drawing for the figure of the small boy at the right in our painting is in the Albertina, Vienna (red chalk, heightened with white, see Ref. Thompson 1982, fig. 2). A painted study for our composition was sold at Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 19, 1890, no. 43. A drawing for it was sold at Hôtel Drouot on May 16f., 1898, no. 143 (red, white and black chalk heightened with pastel, signed and dated 1756, 41 x 53 cm).
The painting was engraved by P. E. Moitte in 1759 and by Jehann-Elie Haïd. An etching was made after it by Jules-Jacques Veyrassat for the 1870 San Donato sale catalogue. According to Munhall (Ref. 1959) engravings of our picture and "The Neapolitan Gesture" were sold together as pendants.
A copy of "Broken Eggs," dated 1770 (not by Greuze, according to Edgar Munhall), is in the collection of Mr. Ines Roscio, Milan. A photograph of another copy, with the composition in reverse, was sent to the museum by Hans Simons of Neumünster, Germany (see Paintings Dept. archives).
Louis Gougenot, abbé de Chezal-Benoît, Rome (from 1756); sale, Paillet, Paris, April 18–25, 1803, no. 90, for Fr 3,000 with pendant, probably to Tessier; Prince Nikolai Nikitich Demidoff, palais de San Donato, near Florence (until d. 1828); by descent to prince Anatole Demidoff, palais de San Donato (until 1870; his sale, Pillet, Paris, February 26, 1870, no. 107, for Fr 126,000 with pendant, to Hertford); Richard Seymour, 4th Marquess of Hertford, London and Paris (d. 1870); his natural son, Sir Richard Wallace, London and Paris (1870–75; sold for £5,229 to Dudley); William Ward, 1st Earl of Dudley, London (1875–at least 1892); William K. Vanderbilt, New York (after 1914–d. 1920)
Paris. Salon. 1757, no. 112.
London. Victoria and Albert Museum, Bethnal Green Branch. "Collection of Paintings, . . . and other Works of Art lent for Exhibition by Sir Richard Wallace," 1872–75, no. 468.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "French Painting and Sculpture of the XVIII Century," November 6, 1935–January 5, 1936, no. 32.
Toledo Museum of Art. "The Spirit of Modern France: An Essay on Painting in Society, 1745–1946," November–December 1946, no. 8.
Art Gallery of Toronto. "The Spirit of Modern France: An Essay on Painting in Society, 1745–1946," January–February 1947, no. 8.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "Masterpieces of Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 16–November 1, 1970, unnumbered cat.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries," November 15, 1970–February 15, 1971, no. 305.
Hartford. Wadsworth Atheneum. "Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1725–1805," December 1, 1976–January 23, 1977, no. 9.
Dijon. Musée des Beaux-Arts. "Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1725–1805," June 4–July 31, 1977, no. 9.
San Francisco. California Palace of the Legion of Honor. "Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1725–1805," March 5–May 1, 1977, no. 9.
Ottawa. National Gallery of Canada. "The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting," June 6–September 7, 2003, no. 64.
Washington. National Gallery of Art. "The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting," October 12, 2003–January 11, 2004, no. 64.
Gemäldegalerie Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. "The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting," February 8–May 9, 2004, no. 64.
L'abbé Barthélemy. Letter to the comte de Caylus. May 12, 1756 [published posthumously in "Voyage en Italie de M. l'abbé Barthélemy . . ., Paris: F. Buisson, An X (1802), p. 138; reprinted by Minkoff Reprints, Geneva, 1972].
[E.-C. Fréron]. "Lettre XV, Exposition des ouvrages de peinture, de sculpture & de gravûre." Année littéraire 5 (1757), pp. 347–48.
[Charles Joseph] Natoire. Letter to Mme de Pompadour. February 22, 1757 [published in Ref. Goncourt 1880, p. 332].
John Smith. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters. 8, London, 1837, p. 430, no. 113.
Anatole de Montaiglon in Jules Renouvier. Histoire de l'art pendant la révolution . . . suivi d'une étude du même sur J.-B. Greuze. Paris, 1863, pp. 504-5.
Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt. L'art du dix-huitième siècle. 1, 3rd ed. Paris, 1880, pp. 332, 339, 350.
Ch. Normand. "J. B. Greuze." Les artistes célèbres. Paris, 1892, pp. 20, 61, ill. p. 66 (detail of Veyrassat etching).
Henry Marcel in Camille Mauclair. Jean-Baptiste Greuze. Paris, 1905, p. 40.
J. Martin Charles Masson. Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint et dessiné de Jean-Baptiste Greuze [published as supplement to C. Mauclair, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Paris, 1905]. Paris, 1905, p. 14, no. 181; ill. p. 3 (engraving).
John Rivers. Greuze and His Models. London, 1912, pp. 125, 270, ill. opp. p. 126 (Moitte engraving).
Louis Hautecœur. Greuze. Paris, 1913, pp. 22, 58, 120.
"The William K. Vanderbilt Bequest." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 15 (December 1920), p. 269.
Louis Réau. "Greuze et la Russie." L'art et les artistes 1 (1920), p. 282.
Wallace Collection Catalogues: Pictures and Drawings. 14th ed. London, 1920, p. 123.
Gaston Maugras. Le duc et la duchesse de Choiseul, leur vie intime, leurs amis et leurs temps. Paris, 1924, p. 65.
Wallace Collection Catalogues: Pictures and Drawings. 15th ed. London, 1928, p. 122.
Harry B. Wehle in French Painting and Sculpture of the XVIII Century. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1935, p. 7, pl. 32, ill.
Millia Davenport. The Book of Costume. New York, 1948, vol. 2, pp. 691–92, no. 1869, ill.
Charles Sterling. "XV–XVIII Centuries." The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of French Paintings. 1, Cambridge, Mass., 1955, pp. 174–75, ill.
Anita Brookner. "Jean-Baptiste Greuze – I." Burlington Magazine 98 (May 1956), p. 158, fig. 34 (an engraving erroneously labeled as the painting).
Edgar Munhall. "Greuze." PhD diss., Yale University, 1959, part 2, pp. 8–11, 13 nn. 52, 61; part 4, p. 12.
Willibald Sauerländer. "Pathosfiguren im Oeuvre des Jean-Baptiste Greuze." Walter Friedlaender zum 90. Geburtstag. Berlin, 1965, pp. 148–49, pl. 30, fig. 5.
Anita Brookner. Greuze: The Rise and Fall of an Eighteenth-century Phenomenon. Greenwich, Conn., 1972, pp. 58–59, 80, 97–98, fig. 16.
Pierre Rosenberg. The Age of Louis XV: French Painting, 1710–1774. Exh. cat., Toledo Museum of Art. [Toledo], 1975, p. 4.
Mario Amaya. "The Moralist: J.-B. Greuze." Art in America (November–December 1976), pp. 85–86.
Edgar Munhall. Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1725–1805. Exh. cat.Hartford, 1976, pp. 20, 40–41, no. 9, ill.
Rüdiger Klessmann. "Museen und Galerien: The Wadsworth Atheneum. Ausstellung: Jean-Baptiste Greuze." Pantheon 35, no. 2 (1977), p. 175.
Stuart Preston. "The Revaluation of Greuze." Apollo 105 (February 1977), p. 139, fig. 9.
Robert Rosenblum. "The Greuze Exhibition at Hartford and Elsewhere." Burlington Magazine 119 (February 1977), p. 146.
Antoine Schnapper. "Greuze: Un précurseur?" Connaissance des arts no. 304 (June 1977), p. 87.
Antoine Schnapper. "Review of Edgar Munhall, "Jean Baptiste Greuze," 1977." Art Bulletin 60, no. 2 (June 1978), p. 374.
Michael Fried. Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot. Berkeley, 1980, pp. 35, 191, n. 66, p. 200, n. 120, ill. p. 36.
Otto Naumann. Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder. Doornspijk, The Netherlands, 1981, vol. 2, p. 19.
James Thompson. "A Study by Greuze for Broken Eggs." Metropolitan Museum Journal 17 (1982), pp. 47–48, ill.
Heather McPherson. "Jean-Baptiste Greuze's Italian Sojourn, 1755–57." Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture 14 (1985), pp. 94, 100–106, fig. 4, ill.
Philip Conisbee. Chardin. Oxford, 1986, pp. 214–15.
Edgar Munhall. "The Variety of Genres in the Work of Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1725–1805." Porticus (1987–1988), p. 22.
Andrzej Pienkos. "'L'Oiseleur' et les trois autres 'Tableaux dans le costume italien.' Quelques remarques sur l'oeuvre de jeunesse de Jean-Baptiste Greuze." Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie 28, no. 1–2 (1987), pp. 1, 3–4, 6, 11–13, ill.
Carol S. Eliel in 1789: French Art During the Revolution. Exh. cat., Colnaghi. New York, 1989, p. 61 n. 28.
James Thompson. "Jean-Baptiste Greuze." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 47 (Winter 1989/90), pp. 14, 21, figs. 11–13 (in color, whole and details), and color details on front and back cover.
Emma Barker. "Greuze and the Painting of Sentiment: The Family in French Art 1755–1785." PhD diss., Courtauld Institute of Art, 1994, vol. 1, pp. 283, 487, ill.
JoLynn Edwards. Alexandre-Joseph Paillet: Expert et marchand de tableaux à la fin du XVIIIe siècle. Paris, 1996, pp. 56, 313, ill. p. 58.
Edgar Munhall in The Dictionary of Art. 13, New York, 1996, p. 639–40, ill.
Richard Rand et al. Intimate Encounters: Love and Domesticity in Eighteenth-Century France. Exh. cat., Hood Museum of Art. Hanover, N.H., 1997, pp. 57, 79, 150–51 n. 6, pp. 190–91 n. 1, ill.
Colin B. Bailey. Jean-Baptiste Greuze: The Laundress. Los Angeles, 2000, p. 5, fig. 2 (color).
Mark Ledbury. Sedaine, Greuze and the Boundaries of Genre. Oxford, 2000, p. 125 n. 3, pp. 135–37, 176, pl. 14.
Edgar Munhall. Greuze the Draftsman. Exh. cat.London, 2002, p. 50, ill. (detail).
Colin B. Bailey in The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting. Exh. cat.New Haven, 2003, pp. 248–50, 366, no. 64, ill. (color).
Bernadette Fort. "The Greuze Girl: The Invention of a Pictorial Paradigm." French Genre Painting in the Eighteenth Century. Washington, 2007, pp. 131–33, 147 nn. 13, 20, 23, fig. 2.
Mark Ledbury. "Greuze in Limbo: Being 'Betwixt and Between'." French Genre Painting in the Eighteenth Century. Washington, 2007, pp. 187–ill. p. 178 and fig. 14 (color; overall and detail).
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