Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Anacreon in His Old Age Crowned by Love

Jean-Baptiste Greuze
1725-1805

Anacreon in His Old Age Crowned by Love

12 3/8 x 16 1/8 inches (314 x 407 mm)
Pen and black ink, brown ink, black wash, with white tempera, over graphite, on brown paper.
1977.57

Bequest of Therese Kuhn Straus in memory of her husband, Herbert N. Straus.

Notes
Watermark: none visible through lining.
While the end of the eighteenth century saw the rise of neoclassicism, a parallel interest was represented in the amorous and mythological subjects such as that found in this sheet by Greuze. Love, personified by a putto, alights on the knee of the sixth-century BC Greek poet Anacreon and crowns his head with a laurel wreath, as the poet had desired in one of his Odes. Greuze's choice of subject, and indeed Anacreon's poetry, which celebrated life's pleasures, indicates the continuation of an alternate manner to the rigorous moral philosophy and severe style espoused by Jacques-Louis David and his colleagues.
Inscriptions/Markings
Signed at lower left in brown ink, "Greuze"; inscribed by the artist on the mount, "Anacreon couronné par l'amour dans la viellesse Greuze".
Associated names
Meestre, Gil de, former owner.
Seligman, Germain, former owner.
Straus, Therese Kuhn, former owner.
Bibliography
Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Eighteenth Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1975-1977. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1978, p. 266.
Classification
Century Drawings
School
Department