Jean-Baptiste GREUZE (Tournus, 1725 - Paris, 1805) The Awakening Oil on canvas In a richly carved and gilded oak frame, probably English work in the Louis XV style The Awakening, oil on canvas, by J.-B. Greuze 48.81 x 38.38 in. 124 x 97.5 cm Provenance: Edwards Collection ; Sold at Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 25 May 1905, no. 20 ; Charles Sedelmeyer Collection; Paris, Galerie Sedelmeyer, Me Chevallier, 16-17-18 May 1907, no. 206 (22,500 Frs to M. Leroux de Villiers); Collection of Madame X ; Sa vente, Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Mes Baudoin & Ader, 12 May 1939, no. 16 ; Roberto Polo Collection; Its sale, Paris, Drouot Montaigne, Ader, Picard, Tajan, 30 May 1988, n° 16 ; Anonymous sale; Monaco, Sotheby's, 22 December 1994, no. 83 ; Anonymous sale; New York, Sotheby's, 28 January 1999, no. 438; Anonymous sale; Paris, Sotheby's, 19 June 2007, no. 34 ; Private collection, Germany Exhibitions: 100 tableaux de Maîtres Anciens, Paris, Galerie Sedelmeyer, 1906, no. 64 Bibliography: Jean Martin, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Paris, 1908, p. 19, no. 248 Jean-Baptiste Greuze is honoured in our sale (lots 264, 286 and 288), a fitting conclusion to the exhibition Jean-Baptiste Greuze. L'enfance en lumière, organised by the Musée du Petit Palais in Paris to celebrate the painter's 300th birthday1. The exhibition brilliantly demonstrated Greuze's talent for depicting dogs, among other things, thanks to the loan by a generous collector of the Portrait of Louise Gabrielle Greuze playing with a dog, from 1767, now in private hands. The dog plays a key role in our painting. Jean-Baptiste Greuze captured the young girl waking up on the edge of her bed, barely dressed. The barking dog extends the scene into an off-screen area, the nature of which we can only imagine: we are thinking, of course, of a lover who has sneaked into the room to admire this woman without her knowledge. This painting by Jean-Baptiste Greuze must have been produced by the painter in the years 1780-1790 or a little later. Its very free execution is similar to the Danae in the Metropolitan Museum in New York (inv. no. 1970.295, fig. 1), whose execution of the curtains, bed linen and veil can be compared. The motif of the young girl elegantly placing her arm above her head can be seen in our painting as well as in the New York painting. Greuze may have been inspired by Jean-Antoine Watteau's Jeune fille à sa toilette in the Wallace Collection, London (c. 1717-1719, inv. no. P439). The theme of a young girl getting up, often accompanied by her dog, was very popular in the eighteenth century, as demonstrated by Jean-Honoré Fragonard's famous painting La gimblette (Munich, Alte Pinakothel, no. HUW 35). The voyeuristic nature of the scene was addressed more or less directly by the painters. For example, in a painting given to Jean-Frédéric Schall, formerly in the Paul Cailleux collection, a young woman covers her nudity with a curtain, while her dog barks vigorously in the right foreground (fig. 2). 1. The exhibition, which ran from 16 September 2025 to 25 January 2026, has just closed. We would like to thank Yuriko Jackall for her invaluable help in writing this leaflet. Jean-Baptiste GREUZE (Tournus, 1725 - Paris, 1805) 124 x 97.5 cm