Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725 – 1805),

was a French painter of portraits, genre scenes, and history painting. Greuze was the father of painter Anna-Geneviève Greuze, who was also his pupil. Greuze wished to be received as a historical painter, and produced a work which he intended to vindicate his right to despise his qualifications as a genre artist. On 4 March 1805, he died in the Louvre in great poverty. He had been in receipt of considerable wealth, which he had dissipated by extravagance and bad management (as well as embezzlement by his wife), he was forced to solicit commissions which his enfeebled powers no longer enabled him to carry out with success. (crop: Broken Eggs 1756)