Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805), Le ménage ambulant, black stone, pen and brown ink, brown and grey wash, white highlights on paper, signed (') in pen and brown ink, lower left Greuze , 30.5x37.9 cm Provenance: Jean-Louis-Antoine le Vaillant de Damery (1723-1803) (according to the letter of the engraving by Binet: Le Dessein est au Cabinet de Monsieur Damery ), Alcide Donnadieu (circa 1791-1861) (L. 98 on recto and verso), Anonymous sale, Paris, 28 March 1872 (as Villageois en voyage. H. 0m30. L.0m38. India ink. Signed Greuze ), Maurice de Rothschild (1881-1957), Paris, looted during the Second World War, but recovered on 17 December 1946, Private collection, Switzerland Bibliography: J. Martin and C. Masson, Catalogue Raisonné de l'œuvre peint et dessiné de Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Paris, 1908, no. 333, p. 24 Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805), The Travelling Household This drawing was engraved in reverse by Louis Binet (1744-1800) (Fig. 1). The print indicates that it was distributed "A Paris chez Beauvarlet rue St. Jacques vis-à-vis celle des Mathurins". Jacques-Firmin Beauvarlet (1731-1797), Binet's master, had his shop at this address in 1762, but from 1763 until 1769, he was based on rue du Petit-Bourbon. The letter of the engraving therefore gives a fairly precise indication of the date on which it was made, and consequently of the date of the drawing. The drawing was produced as a work of art in its own right and not as a study for a painting. Martin and Masson (op. cit), who only knew the engraving, describe it as follows: "A man driving a donkey with two children in its saddle, three women, one of whom is breast-feeding one of her foals, a brood of toddlers, a dog and household utensils make up the treasure of these good people. "The lettering of the engraving confirms the social and moral dimension of the composition: "Ces bonnes gens portent tout avec eux et en sont pas moins gais ni moins heureux". In the early 1760s, Greuze produced several finished drawings depicting families of modest means. The Musée Condé in Chantilly holds a Famille de mendiants exhibited at the Salon of 1761, while a Étude de mendiants was engraved by La Live de Jully (for the drawing, see cat. exp. Greuze l'enfance et la famille, Paris, Galerie Éric Coatalem, 2024, no. 19). Jean-Louis-Antoine le Vaillant de Damery, often called the chevalier de Damery, had a military career (see W. Mcallister Johnson and V. Meyer, "Le chevalier de Damery (1723-1803) et la gravure de collections privées en France au XVIIIe siècle", Nouvelles de l'estampe, 2009, 223, pp. 9-29). He was made lieutenant of the grenadiers in 1759, but retired from the army in 1761 to look after his business affairs. He soon ran into financial difficulties and had to sell part of his collection of paintings in 1764, his collection of prints in 1774 and his cabinet of curiosities in 1779. Most of his collection seems to have been assembled between 1755 and 1765. He made a speciality of having the drawings in his cabinet engraved. No fewer than sixteen Greuze leaves from his collection were engraved. Like the Ménage ambulant, these are mainly drawings of compositions with a finished character, executed in pen and wash. The drawing belonged to Maurice de Rothschild and was kept in his private mansion in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Spoliated by the Nazis along with a large part of the collection, the drawing was transferred to the Jeu de Paume on 2 May 1941. It left for Germany in October 1944 and was found in Munich at the end of the war. It was finally returned to Maurice de Rothschild on 17 December 1946.