JEAN-BAPTISTE GREUZE (TOURNUS 1725-1805 PARIS)

This is a study for the ‘unlikely couple' in the painting La femme jalouse or Les offres malhonnêtes (J. Martin, C. Masson, Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint et dessiné de Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Paris, 1908, no. 293). The elderly man is embracing the younger woman and handing over money. Another study of the same couple, in black chalk, from the Académie des Beaux-Arts, St. Petersburg and one of the large group of Greuze drawings from there sold by C. G. Boerner, Leipzig in April 1931, was sold in these Rooms, 16 April 1991, lot 228, to Adolph Stein. A composition drawing in pen and brown ink, grey wash, showing the couple in reverse was sold at Sotheby's in 1997 (London, 29 January, lot 76).