Jean-Baptiste GREUZE (Tournus, 1725 - Paris, 1805) Thoughtful young girl with bare breast Oil on canvas Bears a label referring to no. 705 in the catalogue raisonné of Jean Martin (Tête de la femme de L'Orage. Salon de l'an VII, n° 77. Could this not be the subject which, under the title: jeune femme dont le visage exprime l'anxiété, was in the collection of E.-W. Lake in 1834? Lake collection (John Smith, no. 167). Thoughful young woman with bare breast, oil on canvas, by J.-B. Greuze 17.71 x 14.56 in. 45 x 37 cm Provenance: Galerie Charles Brunner, Paris, 1920 ; Paul Cailleux (1884-1964), probably before 1950; Private collection, Brussels Expressive heads are one of the most remarkable aspects of Jean-Baptiste Greuze's work, which he developed increasingly systematically in oil on canvas, pastel or red chalk on paper after his falling out with the Académie in 1769. This body of work was part of a growing interest in his time in the representation of emotions, extending the teachings of the painter Charles Le Brun who, in 1668, had proposed codifying the expression of passions in a lecture to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. A label on the reverse relates our painting to a work described in Jean Martin's catalogue representing anxiety. It is possible to link our painting to a group of works by Greuze based on the expression of fear. The same is true of a pastel in the collections of the Musée du Louvre (no. RF 41293). The model's face is turned to the right and her eyes raised to the sky. However, the young girl represented on our canvas does not have her mouth open. Nor are the drapes and hair lifted by the wind, as is usually the case with paintings depicting fear, such as La peur de l'orage in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux (inv. 19712-9). Our model is therefore probably tormented by another feeling. It remains unclear whether the painter was trying to apply a melancholy expression or rather a form of rapture. Our magnificent painting, with its generous application of paint, is comparable in style to other works by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, such as Le désir tendre in the Leipzig City Museum and Tête de jeune fille in the Musée du Louvre (from the Louis La Caze collection, on deposit at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, MI 1067, fig. 1), painted around 1775. We would like to thank Mrs Yuriko Jackall for the invaluable information she provided us after a visual examination of the work on 19 January 2026. Jean-Baptiste GREUZE (Tournus, 1725 - Paris, 1805) 45 x 37 cm