# Portrait of the Artist's Mother

- By: Jean Baptiste Greuze (French, 1725-1805)
- Date: 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
- Credit line: Gift of Celia and David Hilliard in honor of Suzanne Folds McCullagh
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/197866)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/45af1620227719086a1447b2a3af9ffc.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

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