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Portrait of the Artist's Mother
Jean Baptiste Greuze (French, 1725-1805)
1775
- Medium
- Black, red, and white chalk with stumping on brownish-gray laid paper, laid down on a ivory laid card
- Classification
- Drawing and Watercolor
- Dimensions
- 37.7 × 29.3 cm (14 7/8 × 11 9/16 in.)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- Gift of Celia and David Hilliard in honor of Suzanne Folds McCullagh
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This remarkable study of dignified old age is a poignant, rare portrait of Jean-Baptiste Greuze’s mother, Claudine, made when she was approximately 75 years old. Recently discovered, it documents a tender reunion of mother and son. Greuze visited his family in Tournus in 1755 on his way to Italy with Abbot Gougenot. A related drawing in a private Parisian collection has been identified as Madame Greuze Embracing Her Son after 20 Years Absence; the date of that work suggests that the present sheet was also made in 1775.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
