# Women and Children Mourning a Dead Man

- By: Jean Baptiste Greuze (French, 1725-1805)
- Date: 1778
- Medium: Pen and brown ink, and brush and gray and brown wash, with graphite, on cream laid paper, laid down on ivory laid paper, laid down on ivory laid paper
- Classification: Drawing and Watercolor
- Dimensions: 24.9 × 32.4 cm (9 13/16 × 12 13/16 in.)
- Culture: France
- Credit line: Margaret Day Blake Fund
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/65825)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/9ecca2be-5dda-6362-22ab-e1e98fdaf94a/full/843,/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

In the third quarter of the 18th century, a young generation of artists developed a sober, almost classicizing reaction to the artificial frivolities of artists like François Boucher. Greuze depicted scenes from daily life that were intended to be inspirational or morally uplifting. This drawing is a study for his painting of 1778 (now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris) showing the errant son who has returned home just as his father has died.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0