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Jean-Baptiste Greuze

Born: Tournus, 21 August 1725
Died: Paris, 21 March 1805
Nationality: French
Background: 

Son of a roofer

Studies: 

With portrait painter Charles Grandon in Lyon (1748-50); Académie Royale (1750-55) 

Career: 

1755 – Becomes Académie Royal junior member (agréé); first Salon exhibition (Family Bible Reading, private collection)

1769 – Becomes Académie Royal full member (genre painter) based on acceptance of Septimius Severus Reproaching Caracalla, whose merits as a history painting were considered below Académie standards

Helped by Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, admired by Denis Diderot 

Travels

Rome (1755-57)

Commissions from: 

Marquis de Marigny, Ange-Laurent de La Live de Jully

Important Artworks: 

Broken Eggs, 1757 Salon (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)  

The Marriage Contract, 1761 Salon (Louvre, Paris)

Filial Piety, 1763 Salon (Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg)  

Septimius Severus Reproaching Caracalla, 1769 (Musée Greuze, Tournus)

Self-Portrait, n.d. (Musée Greuze, Tournus)