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Study of a Woman’s Head

ca. 1780
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 639
Greuze’s contemporaries would have referred to this intense and affecting close-up of a model as a tête d’expression, meaning an expressive head or character study. Such works adhered to longstanding traditions about how best to depict emotions and convey the narratives of historical or biblical subjects. Although this highly finished depiction of a woman’s head has been associated with the imploring female protagonists in several of Greuze’s moralizing genre scenes, it appears to have been an independent painting. Many of Greuze’s têtes d’expression circulated successfully on the eighteenth-century art market.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Study of a Woman’s Head
  • Artist: Jean-Baptiste Greuze (French, Tournus 1725–1805 Paris)
  • Date: ca. 1780
  • Medium: Oil on wood
  • Dimensions: 18 1/2 x 16 in. (47 x 40.6 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Purchase, 1871
  • Object Number: 71.91
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

More Artwork

More Artwork
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Head of a Woman, after Greuze, from "Etchings of Pictures in the Metropolitan Museum New York", Jules-Ferdinand Jacquemart French, Etching; third state of four (Gonse)
Head of a Woman, after Greuze, from "Etchings of Pictures in the Metropolitan Museum New York"
Multiple artists/makers
1871
Head of a Woman, after Greuze, Jules-Ferdinand Jacquemart French, Etching on chine collé
Head of a Woman, after Greuze
Multiple artists/makers
1871
Head of a Woman, after Greuze
Multiple artists/makers
1871
Study of a Hand, Jean-Baptiste Greuze French, Red and black chalk
Study of a Hand
Jean-Baptiste Greuze
ca. 1760–80
Girl's Head, Jean-Baptiste Greuze French, Red chalk
Girl's Head
Jean-Baptiste Greuze
n.d.

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Jean-Baptiste Greuze - Study of a Woman’s Head - The Metropolitan Museum of Art