VENDU Lot n° 35

The departure in nurse Sanguine, black stone, feather and Indian ink, grey wash, white gouache highlights. Slightly insolated, glued right on an old mount, stripe from the center down. 41,5 x 53 cm Related works: A drawing preceding this one, a quick pencil sketch, is kept in the Louvre museum (Inv 26954). A similar composition with many variants but in the same decoration, of a more serene spirit, formerly kept at the Hermitage and sold to BOERNER on 4 May 1932, no. 44, repr. plate VI. Another composition on the same subject, high up, kept at the Norton Simon in Los Angeles (see catalogue of the Jean-Baptiste GREUZE exhibition, Dijon, 1977, n°41, repr.). Engravings of this subject by Jean-Baptiste SIMONET, La privation sensible and Claude Henri WATELET, both in height. GREUZE illustrates here a common scene in the 18th century: the putting of a newborn baby in a nursery. This had become a principle of education for the children of city-dwellers who could afford it, and preferred their children to grow up breast-fed and breathe the pure country air; it seems that the fashion has changed little, apart from the breast, which must be maternal... GREUZE himself had fostered his daughter Anne-Geneviève, born in 1762. On September 19, 1763, the painter WILLE reports how he was graciously invited by GREUZE and his wife to accompany him to see his daughter in the countryside, with the painter Gabriel-François DOYEN as a friendly reinforcement (opus quoted above, p.98).