Greuze achieved success with his paintings of everyday life that emphasized moral values. This scene of domestic chaos, which the artist drew as a model for an engraving, refers to episodes from his own life. About the time he executed this drawing, Greuze recounted instances of his wife’s violent outbursts in the deposition he made to obtain a legal separation. Here, wild-eyed and wielding a decanter above her head, she bursts into the room to accost her husband, who cowers between his daughters at left. The barking dog, broken bottle, overturned chair, and steaming dish all signal the disarray of the household. The contrasting manners of husband and wife also invert the "natural" gender roles assigned by Enlightenment thinkers.
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Medium:Brush and black and gray wash, heightened with white, over traces of graphite
Dimensions:20 1/2 x 25 3/16 in. (52.1 x 64 cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1960
Object Number:61.1.1
Signature: Lower margin: J.B. Greuze pinx. R. Gaillard Sculp.
Inscription: Lower margin: La Femme Colère; and the following verses: Lise calmez votre courroux/Vous cessez d'être Femme, et vous n'êtes plus Mère/Tout parle ici pour votre Epoux/Vos filles plus sages que vous/Remplissent leur devoir, gardent leur caractère,/En réparant vos torts, et consolant leur Père./signed: P.C.; on back of old mount: Dessin original de Greuze. Achetz dans son cabinet après sa mort par Monsieur Joseph Joubert, auteur des Pensées et Maximes.
Joseph Joubert (French); Hesme (French)his sale, Paris, March 3-4, 1856, lot 89; Hôtel Drouot, Paris , March 9, 1950, lot 16; Vendor: Jean Cailleux (French)
Galerie Cailleux, Paris. "Le dessin français de Watteau à Prud'hon," April 1, 1951–April 30, 1951.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "15th–18th Century French Drawings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 18, 1986–January 4, 1987.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Eighteenth-Century French Drawings in New York Collections," February 3–April 25, 1999.
The Frick Collection. "Greuze the Draftsman," May 14, 2002–August 4, 2002.
J. Paul Getty Museum. "Greuze the Draftsman," September 10, 2002–December 1, 2003.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints: Anniversary Highlights," October 8, 2020–January 18, 2021.
Bean and Turcic 1986. 125; Martin and Masson 1905.143
Camille Mauclair, Henry Camille Marcel, Jean Martin, Charles Masson Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint et dessiné de Jean-Baptiste Greuze. Paris, 1905, cat. no. 143, p. 11.
Jean Cailleux, Gérald Bauer Le dessin français de Watteau à Prud'hon. Ex. cat. Paris, 1951, cat. no. 187.
Jacob Bean 100 European Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: New York Graphic Society, 1964, cat. no. 59, fig. no. 59, ill.
Paul Hulton "France in the Eighteenth Century at the Royal Academy" in Master Drawings. vol 6, no. 2, 1968, p. 167.
France in the Eighteenth Century. Exh. cat. Royal Academy of Arts, London, Winter 1968, cat. no. 326, p. 82, ill.
Linda Boyer Gillies, Colta Ives French Drawings and Prints of the Eighteenth Century. Ex. cat. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1972, cat. no. 25.
Mario Amaya "The Moralist." Art in America. vol. 64, no. 6, 1976, November-December 1976, p. 84, ill.
Edgar Munhall Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1725-1805 Exh. cat., Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum; San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor; Dijon, Musée des Beaux-Arts. Hartford, San Francisco, Dijon, Dec. 1, 1976-July 31, 1977, cat. no. 96, ill.
Jacob Bean, Lawrence Turčić 15th-18th Century French Drawings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1986, cat. no. 125, p. 119, ill.
Stephen V. Grancsay, Stuart W. Pyhrr Arms & Armor: Essays by Stephen V. Grancsay from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 1920–1964. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1986.
James Thompson "Jean-Baptiste Greuze." in The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 47, no. 3, New York, Winter 1989/90, fig. no. 233, pp. 38, 39, ill.
Paul Jeromack "What He Wanted From His Public Was Tears." The New York Times. New York, March 4, 1990, p. H 37, ill.
Richard Rand "Civil and Natural Contract in Greuze's L'Accordée de Village." Gazette des Beaux-Arts. Paris, May-June 1996, fig. no. 9, p. 230, ill.
Perrin Stein, Mary Tavener Holmes Eighteenth-Century French Drawings in New York Collections Exh. cat. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1999, cat. no. 84, pp. 193-195, ill.
Philipe Le Leyzour, Alain Daguerre de Hureaux Les peintres du roi 1648-1793. Exh. cat., Tours and Toulouse. Paris, 2000, cat. no. under no. 45, fig. no. 45d, p. 189, ill.
Edgar Munhall Greuze the Draftsman. Ex. cat., The Frick Collection, New York, May 14-Aug. 4, 2002, and at The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Sept. 10-Dec. 1, 2002. New York, 2002, cat. no. 89, pp. 247-249, ill.
Louis-Antoine Prat Le Dessin Français au XVIIIe siècle. Paris, 2017, fig. no. 879, 434-35.
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