Enlightenment

Jean-Baptiste Greuze

La Cruche cassée

about 1771–72

Oil on canvas, oval, 43 × 34 1/4 in. Musée du Louvre, Paris

One girl, a cracked jug and loose roses: the moralist of the family scene turned to a single figure, with the meaning left to the objects.

Look at

• The oval frames a frontal figure centred top to bottom, with no room for a story around her.
• The white dress is the light of the picture, set against the dark fountain head at right and a grey-blue sky.
• The dress and roses are brushed loosely; the face is smooth and finished.

• Seized from Madame du Barry at Louveciennes in 1794; the marquis de Véri owned a second original.
• Never in a Salon: once the 1777 exhibition had ended, Greuze put it on view in his own studio at the Louvre that October.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain