The Guilty and Repentant Daughter

early 1770s

The Guilty and Repentant Daughter, early 1770s. Jean-Baptiste Greuze (French, 1725–1805). Brush and black and gray wash over black chalk; sheet: 49.8 x 64.3 cm (19 5/8 x 25 5/16 in.); secondary support: 49.8 x 64.3 cm (19 5/8 x 25 5/16 in.); tertiary support: 61.3 x 78.8 cm (24 1/8 x 31 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1989.46 This drawing belongs to a group of highly finished drawings created by Jean-Baptiste Greuze during the 1770s, many of which focused on family crises and were characterized by groups of figures set in shallow interior spaces. Although the precise subject of the work is unknown, it shows a father and his son kneeling before him. The title, which comes from an inscription on the drawing's original frame, refers to the girl entering the room at right, who is presumably disgraced due to a pregnancy out of wedlock. She is preceded by a woman who angrily confronts the family, gesturing to the girl's swollen stomach, perhaps accusing either the old or young man of impregnating the girl. The man who served as the model for the father in Greuze's drawing also appears as a butcher in another sheet by the artist.