JEAN-BAPTISTE GREUZE (1725-1805) Diane Canvas Signed upper right JB Greuze and dated 1760 On the back, several labels, including one from the Wildenstein gallery; a N-1230 / d, a label from Pitt and Scott Paris London (handwritten mention Rue saint Florentin 19.3.64). Height: 46.5 cm Width: 38.5 cm Provenance : - Collection of the painter Jean Georges Wille (1715-1808) ; - Collection of the Prince of Bavaria (probably Karl Theodor, 1839-1909); - Graupe Berlin sale September 26, 1930 (A collection of paintings by the princely families of southern Germany) nos. 26 and 27 ; - Galerie Wildenstein , New York and London, 1938 ; - Sale New York (according to Frick Art Référence Library), Sotheby's Parke Bernet New York The Estate of Mrs Orme Wilson March 25-26, 1949, lot 326 ; - Sale Paris, Drouot Rive Gauche, July 11, 1978, Me Ferri, with Callisto (under the following no.); acquired at this sale by the present owners. Exhibition: London, Wildenstein an C° Ltd, Women in France in the XVIIIth century, April-May 1938, no. 10. The painting is illustrated in color in London News, Christmas number, 1938, p.24. Burlington Magazine Vol. LXXII n° 423 June 1938. Bibliography : Camille Mauclair, H. Piazza et Cie, Jean Baptiste Greuze, Paris, 1908, n° 524, Diane. The painting was engraved by Gaillard with the title: Diane, Tiré du cabinet de M. Wille graveur du roi. Despite the absence of the traditional crescent, Diane's attribute, we use the title given in Gaillard's engraving. Gaillard's engraving. ''In July 1760, Greuze delivered to me a bust of a woman, seen almost in profile. the back of her head, her hair falling over her shoulders. The corselet is red and the sleeves are yellow. fichu de mousseline rayé de rouge est knoué en croix sur la gorge" (G. Duplessis, Journal de Wille). "Wille was the friend, the true friend, not the intimate envy of the easygoing and charming talents of his time. In his collection, many paintings, many drawings, revealed a good deed, attested a service, marked a gratitude, recalled one of those bonds that only death could have broken. From the old bottles of wine that the young man emptied at the Gobelins with old Parrocel, to the morning chocolate Madame Greuze offered the old man, - Wille's years passed in loyal and cordial confraternity with all the celebrities of his time; and it's a pleasure to watch with what affection and sincere admiration affection and sincere admiration the friend Wille has for the friend Greuze, that profound and solid painter, as he calls him Greuze and Wille! the two old friends, the two old hearts united! See them visiting little Greuze's nurse! Greuze trace Wille's fine, benevolent face with his best brushes! and see the two of them perched on a ladder, confessing with their noses to the canvas, the Rubens of the Luxembourg twelve feet above the ground - and eighteenth-century judgments! "... (Memoirs and diary of Jean Georges Wille, graveur du roi, published from autograph manuscripts in the Imperial Library by Georges du Plessis with preface by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, Paris, 1857). From the 1760s onwards, Jean-Baptiste Greuze distinguished himself with his studies of heads, in which he excelled at capturing human emotions with great skill. human emotions with great finesse and intense psychology. These works often depict young girls or children, reflect a heightened sensitivity and marked expressions remarkable technical mastery. Their success was not limited to the general public: they also critics, notably Denis Diderot, who praised their psychological truth and and moral beauty. In the same vein, the introduction in 1759 of the Prix de la meilleure tête d'expression by the Comte de Caylus (1692-1765) illustrates the period's taste for this type of painting. Gaillard's pendant engravings of Diana and Callisto, bearing the cabinet letter of Jean-Georges Wille, confirm that the two paintings were in Wille's collection together. The Diane was delivered to Wille in July 1760, as his diary indicates, while Callisto was exhibited at the exhibited at the Salon of 1761 as Tête de nymphe de Diane (n°103), and acquired by Wille before or after this Salon. Salon. At the Salon of 1765, Greuze's last, Diderot expressed his pleasure at a study for La Mère bien aimée. study for La Mère bien aimée, on loan from Baron Pierre Joseph Victor de Besenval, Inspector General of the French Swiss and Grisons. He raved: "It's still quite a beautiful thing. It's full of the truth of flesh, and infinitely infinite softness. She's well built, but a little gray; the corners of her mouth drooping give her an air of