French school of the 18th century.

French school of the 18th century.
Circle of JEAN BAPTISTE GREUZE (Tournus, 1725-Paris, 1805).
"Young man."
Oil on canvas.
Relined.
Signed "J.B, Greuze".
Measurements: 63 x 50 cm; 72 x 60 cm (frame).

This delicate feminine portrait, belonging to the circle of Jean-Baptiste Greuze, perfectly embodies the moral and sentimental sensibility of the French late rococo, already in transit towards the intimate and emotional realism that characterized the painting of the second half of the 18th century.

The composition presents a young woman with soft features and pensive expression, who slightly tilts her head while directing her clear gaze towards a point outside the painting. Her dreamy, melancholy face, illuminated by a diffused light, conveys a restrained and sincere emotion, in tune with the genre painting that Greuze cultivated with great success.

The slight blush of the cheeks, the rosy lips of natural tone and the neat hairstyle, which reveals a clear forehead, accentuate the purity and youthful freshness of the character. The young woman wears a bodice covered by a white scarf, simple but elegant, a symbol of modesty and virtue, recurring traits in the female portrait of Greuze's environment.

The treatment of color (soft transitions, predominance of ivory, honey and pink tones), together with the delicacy of the modeling, reveal a refined technique and an interest in interior expression rather than external ostentation, moving away from the frivolity of full rococo.

Overall, the work reflects the aesthetic and moral ideal of the sentimental rococo, where feminine beauty is associated with innocence, emotion and domestic sensitivity, in a line that preludes the bourgeois and pre-romantic taste of the late eighteenth century.