Jean-Baptiste GREUZE (Tournus, 1725 - Paris, 1805) Bacchante with naked breast Oil on canvas (Restorations) Bare-breasted Bacchante, oil on canvas, by J.-B. Greuze 16.33 x 13.38 in. 41.5 x 34 cm Provenance: Carlos Guinle Collection, Rio de Janeiro, 1838, according to Christie's catalogue; Henry Say Collection; Its sale, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Me Lair-Dubreuil, 30 November 1908, no. 10 (60 000 Frs to Mr Gradt); Anonymous sale; New York, Christie's, 11 January 1991, no. 68 (as Attributed to Jean-Baptiste Greuze); Private collection, Belgium The Bacchante motif was treated on several occasions by Jean-Baptiste Greuze1. The Wallace Collection in London has another representation of a Bacchante by Greuze (inv. no. P 407). Crowned with vine branches, she is wearing a panther skin. These different autographed versions testify to the success of this theme, which was also engraved by Paul Rajon. From the end of the 1770s, having left the Académie after the scandal caused by his reception piece L'Empereur Septime Sévère reproche à Caracalla, son fils, d'avoir voulu l'assassiner (The Emperor Septimius Severus reproaches his son Caracalla for wanting to assassinate him) of 1769, Greuze devoted himself to producing expressive heads, often charged with eroticism, which gradually formed a genre of their own. Here, Greuze combined his research into expressions with a mythological subject, the bacchante, worshipper of Bacchus, the god of wine. The model's expression of slight abandon relates to that of rapture as conceived by Charles Le Brun in the 17th century. The loose brushwork suggests that the picture may have been painted in the 1780s. Our painting was reproduced in miniature by the painter Jean-Baptiste-Jacques Augustin (1759-1832), who admired Greuze (fig. 1). The miniaturist owned two paintings by Greuze, including our composition. The painting, of which he painted a copy, was sold by his widow in 1839 with the following description: 'Bust of a young bacchante whose head is seen almost from the front; she has her shoulders and one breast uncovered, a light cloth flutters around her body'2. In view of the provenance established by Christie's for our work, Bernd Pappe suggests that the painting in the collection of the miniaturist Augustin is another version of our canvas. 1. For example, Jean Martin, Œuvre de J.-B. Greuze, Paris, 1908, p. 29-30. 2. Bernd Pappe, Jean-Baptiste-Jacques Augustin, Verona, 2015 p. 271 We would like to thank Mrs Yuriko Jackall for the valuable information she gave us after a visual examination of the work on 19 January 2026. Jean-Baptiste GREUZE (Tournus, 1725 - Paris, 1805) 41.5 x 34 cm