The J. Paul Getty Museum

The Laundress (La Blanchisseuse)

Object Details

Title:

The Laundress (La Blanchisseuse)

Artist/Maker:

Jean-Baptiste Greuze (French, 1725 - 1805)

Culture:

French

Place:

France (Place Created)

Date:

1761

Medium:

Oil on canvas

Object Number:

83.PA.387

Dimensions:

40.6 × 33 cm (16 × 13 in.)

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Object Description

"This little laundress is charming, but she's a rascal I wouldn't trust an inch," the critic Denis Diderot declared when this painting was first exhibited in 1761. Indeed, Jean-Baptiste Greuze stripped the traditional theme of the washerwoman of its association with the virtue of hard work and instead overlaid it with a titillating sensuality typical of Rococo art. In a room scattered with wet and drying laundry, a disheveled maidservant with an exposed stocking and slipper fixes the viewer with a provocative gaze.

Greuze used a heavily loaded brush to apply patches of paint that describe texture and surface: the folds of the young woman's dress, the heaviness of wet cloth, the dull sheen on the pewter jug, and the grainy texture of wood.

Provenance
Provenance
1761-1770

Ange-Laurent de La Live de Jully, French, 1725 - 1779 [sold, La Live de Jully sale, Rémy, Paris, May 2, 1770, lot 115, to Jacques Lenglier (Paris, France) on behalf of Gustaf Adolph Sparre.]

1770 - 1794

Count Gustaf Adolph Sparre, 1746 - 1794 (Kulla Gunnarstorp, Skåne, Sweden), by inheritance to his wife, Amelie (Ramel) Sparre, 1794.

1794-1830

Countess Amelie (Ramel) Sparre, 1753 - 1830 (Kulla Gunnarstorp, Skåne, Sweden), by inheritance to her grandson, Gustaf Adolf Frederik de la Gardie, 1830.

1830-1833

Count Gustaf Adolf Frederik de la Gardie, 1800 - 1833 (Kulla Gunnarstorp, Skåne, Sweden), by inheritance to his father, Jakob Gustaf de la Gardie, 1833.

1833 - by 1840

Count Jakob Gustaf de la Gardie, Swedish, 1768 - 1842, sold to Count Carl de Geer with the sale of the estate Kulla Gunnarstorp in 1837, or by 1840.

by 1840 - 1855

Count Carl de Geer, Swedish, 1781 - 1861 (Leufst, Sweden), by gift to his granddaughter, Elizabeth (von Platen) Wachtmeister, 1855.

1855-1918

Countess Elizabeth (von Platen) Wachtmeister, Swedish, 1834 - 1918 (Wanås, Sweden), by inheritence within the Wachtmeister family to Gustaf Axel Wachtmeister.

by 1958 -1978

Count Gustav Axel Wachtmeister, 1887 - 1978 (Wanås, Sweden), by inheritence within the Wachtmeister family.

1978-1983

Wachtmeister Family, sold through Christophe Janet Ltd. (New York, New York) to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1983.

Exhibitions
Exhibitions
Salon of 1761 (1761)
  • Salon, Palais du Louvre (Paris), 1761
Fem Sekler Fransk Konst: Miniatyrer, Malningar, Teckningar 1400-1900 (August 15 to November 9, 1958)
  • Nationalmuseum (Stockholm), August 15 to November 9, 1958
Greuze the Painter: Los Angeles Works in Context (September 10 to December 1, 2002)
  • The J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center (Los Angeles), September 10 to December 1, 2002
French Genre Painting in the Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard (June 6, 2003 to May 9, 2004)
  • National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), June 6 to September 7, 2003
  • National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), October 12, 2003 to January 11, 2004
  • Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Berlin), February 4 to May 9, 2004
Bibliography
Bibliography

"Exposition de peintures, sculptures et gravures." Année Littéraire 47, suppl., 3, no. 1272 (1761), p. 86 ms.

"Exposition de peintures, sculptures et gravures." Avant-Coureur 47, suppl., 3, no. 1276 (1761), pp. 164-65 ms.

Blanc, Abbé Le. "Explication des peintures, sculptures & gravures de messieurs de l'Académie Royale..." Mercure de France 1 (October 1761), pp. 160-61.

La Porte, Abbé de. "Observations d'une Société d'amateurs sur les tableaux exposés au Salon, cette année 1761." L'Observateur littéraire 7, no. 94 (1761), p. 46-47.

"Exposition de peintures, sculptures et gravures." Journal encyclopédique 47, suppl., 3, no. 1273 (1761), p. 128 ms.

"Obervations d'une société d'amateurs, sur les tableaux exposés au Salon cette année..." Mercure de France 2 (October 1761), p. 114.

Petites Affiches de Paris (August 31, 1761), unpaginated.

Mariette, Pierre-Jean. Catalogue historique du cabinet de peinture et sculpture françoise de M. de La Live (Paris: Al. Le Prieur, 1764), p. 101.

Hébert, César Auguste. Dictionnaire pittoresque et historique. 2 vols. (Paris: Claude Hérissant, 1766), vol. 1, p. 128.

Rémy, Paris. Catalogue raisonné des tableaux de different écoles [...] qui composent la cabinet de M. de La Live de Jully. March 5, 1770, p. 55, lot 115.

Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters [...]. 9 vols. (London: Smith and Son, 1829-42), vol. 8 (1837), p. 408, no. 27.

Blanc, Charles. "Jean-Baptiste Greuze." In Histoire des peintres de toutes les écoles. 11 vols. (Paris: Librairie Renouard, 1865-1877), vol. 7 (École française), pp. 7, 16, ill (in reverse).

Collection des livrets des anciennes expositions depuis 1673 jusqu'en 1800. Vol. 2, Exposition de 1761. 6 vols. (Paris: Liepmannsohn et Dufour, 1869), p. 26.

Courajod, Louis, ed. Livre-Journal de Lazare Duvaux, marchand-bijoutier ordinaire du roy 1748-1758, précedé d'une étude sur le goût et sur le commerce des objets d'art au milieu du XVIIIe siècle. 2 vols. (Paris: Société des Bibliophiles François, 1873), vol. 1, p. 286.

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Granberg, Olof. Catalogue raisonné de tableaux anciens inconnus jusqu'ici dans les collections privées de la Suède (Stockholm: Samson & Wallin, 1886), pp. 19-20, no. 29.

Normand, Charles. Les artistes célèbres: J. B. Greuze (Paris: Librairie de l'Art, 1892), pp. 24, 109.

Göthe, Anders Georg. Tafvelsamlingen på Wanås (Stockholm: n.p., 1895), p. 16, no. 20, ill.

Lady Dilke (Emilia Francis Strong Dilke). French Painters of the XVIIIth Century (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1899), p. 135, ill.

Mauclair, Camille. Jean-Baptiste Greuze (Paris: H. Piazza, 1905), pp. 49-50, 116, no. 208.

Martin, Jean. Oeuvre de J.- B. Greuze: Catalogue raisonné suivi de la liste des gravures exécutées d'après ses ouvrages (Paris: H. Piazza, 1905; repr., Paris: G. Rapilly, 1908), p. 16, no. 208.

Dacier, Émile, ed. Catalogues de ventes et livrets de Salons illustrés par Gabriel de Saint-Aubin. 11 vols. (Paris: Société de reproduction des dessins de maîtres, 1909-1921), vol. 6 (1911), p. 64, nos. 4, 102.

Granberg, Olof. Inventaire général des trésors d'art: peintures & sculptures, principalement de maîtres étrangers (non scandinaves) en Suède. 3 vols. (Stockholm: Cederquists grafiska aktiebolag, 1911-13), vol. 1 (1911), pp. 116, no. 509, pl. 42.

Rivers, John. Greuze and His Models (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1912), pp. 186, 190, ill. (in reverse).

Grate, Pontus, and Per Bjurström. Fem Sekler Fransk Konst: Miniatyrer, Målningar, Teckningar 1400-1900, exh. cat. (Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, 1958), p. 78, no. 90.

Diderot, Denis. Salons. Jean Seznec and Jean Adhémar, eds. 4 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957-67), vol. 4 (1967), vol. 1 (1957), pp. 98-99, no. 102.

Brookner, Anita. Greuze: The Rise and Fall of an Eighteenth-Century Phenomenon (London: Elek, 1972), p. 62.

Hasselgren, Ingmar. "Konstsamlaren Gustaf Adolf Sparre 1746-1794: Hans studieresa, vaning och konstsamling i Göteborg." Ph.D. diss. (University of Gottenburg, 1974), pp. 118, 121, 172, 197.

Munhall, Edgar. Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1725-1805, exh. cat. (Hartford: Wadsworth Atheneum, 1977), p. 21.

Rosenberg, Pierre, ed. Chardin 1699-1779, exh. cat. (Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1979), p. 292.

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"Acquisitions/1983." The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 12 (1984), p. 313.

Fredericksen, Burton B. "Recent Acquisitions of Paintings: The J. Paul Getty Museum." Burlington Magazine 127, no. 985 (April 1985), pp. 263, 266-67, fig. 99.

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La Live de Jully, Ange-Laurent de. A Facsimile Reprint of the Catalogue historique (1764) and the Catalogue raisonné des tableaux (March 5, 1770). Colin B. Bailey, ed. (New York: Acanthus, 1988), pp. 52-53, 55, no. 115.

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Education Resources
Education Resources

Education Resource

Subjects

Grades

Format

The Laundress

Students explore the concept of work, and work typically assigned to women, through artwork depicting laundresses.

Visual Arts; English–Language Arts

3-5

Three/Five-Part Lesson