Head of a Girl with Fixed Eyes
Medium
Red chalk on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
26.3 × 24.9 cm (10 3/8 × 9 13/16 in.)
Classification
chalk
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
81217
Art Historical Context
Jean-Baptiste Greuze, an eighteenth-century French artist celebrated for his emotionally charged portraits and genre scenes, created this intimate head study in red chalk. Working during the transition from Rococo elegance to more naturalistic expression, Greuze often focused on the inner lives of his subjects—particularly young women—capturing fleeting expressions with remarkable sensitivity. Though undated, the drawing exemplifies his interest in psychological depth, here conveyed through the girl’s steady, penetrating gaze. Executed on ivory laid paper, the medium of red chalk (also called...
About the Artist
Jean Baptiste Greuze · 1725–1805
Greuze's paintings are typical for his time and place in that he used clear, bright colors, with subjects exhibiting rather light attitude of eighteenth-century painting. However, he was innovative in introducing a Dutch-influenced realism into French genre painting and portraiture. Through vivid facial expressions and dramatic gestures, Greuze's moralizing paintings exemplified the new idea that ...