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an image of a painting of a nude woman sitting on a tabledrawing of a nude woman sitting on a bed with her hands on her kneesdrawing of a nude woman leaning on a stool with her hands on her kneesdrawing of a nude woman laying on a bed with her arms crossed
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31 - Jean-Baptiste Greuze (Tournus 1725 – Paris 1805) *Naked Youn…
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Estimate €30,000 - €50,000
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Description
Jean-Baptiste Greuze (Tournus 1725 – Paris 1805) *Naked Young Girl Kneeling*, preliminary study for *Morning Prayer* Red chalk, black chalk, stump, grey wash on paper 36 x 46 cm Provenance: Private collection, France Exhibitions: > Around Greuze, Offerings to Love, Hôtel-Dieu, Greuze Museum, Tournus, 1 April to 31 October 2016; reproduced in the exhibition catalogue > ‘Dess[e]ins de Greuze’, exhibition catalogue, 17 September 2025 to 4 January 2026, Magnin Museum Expert: Cabinet de Bayser +33 (0)1 47 03 49 87 [email protected] Condition report: Traces of foxing and white spots in the centre; restorations. Our drawing is a preliminary study for *La Prière du matin* (*Morning Prayer*), produced around 1780 and held at the Musée Fabre in Montpellier. A replica is held at the Musée Cognacq-Jay in Paris. A grey wash drawing of the clothed figure, probably a ‘ricordo’ of the painting, is also held at the Greuze Museum in Tournus. At that time, prostitutes were Greuze’s preferred models for his studies of female nudes, as revealed by Yuriko Jackall’s research. In a passage from *Exercices de dévotion de M. Henri Roch avec Mme la duchesse de Condor* (published in 1786), Greuze is specifically mentioned: ‘Painters are in the habit of bringing public women to their homes and having them pose completely naked; when they find perfect figures, they work from these models (…) Mr Greuze is reputed to be the painter who has seen the most models and the husband who, in his station, has been the most faithful. ” (see the exhibition catalogue *Greuze: L’enfance en lumière*, Paris, Petit Palais, edited by Annick Lemoine, Yuriko Jackall and Mickaël Szanto, p. 271). The study from life of this naked young girl is undoubtedly the result of a pose by a courtesan, which, for a religious subject, remained scandalous in the 18th century just as it had been in Caravaggio’s time. The sexual ambiguity of the final painting – somewhat hypocritical – is revealed in all its shamelessness in this preliminary drawing.
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About the sale Modern Art • Oriental & Asian Art • Furniture & Works of Art
Auction location
Auction time 10/17/2026 at 10:30 AM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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