Portrait of a girl with a dog

Portrait of a little girl with a small dog This painting from the collection of the Potoccy, the former owners of the castle of Łańcut, shows a half figure of a little girl, turned sideways and looking at the viewer. In her hands, the little girl is holding a small hairy dog in white and brown patches. The colours of the painting are limited, subdued, with greenish and golden tones prevailing. The painting has a broad, profiled, gilded frame decorated with four types of ornaments arranged in bands. On the lower frame part there is an inscription in black paint: „GREUSE”. The portrait may be a 19th-century copy of an original by this painter. Jean Baptiste Greuze (b. August 1725 in Tournus, d. March 1805 in Paris) was a French rococo and neoclassicist painter. He studied in Lyon, later in Paris at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. He spent two years (1755-1757) in Italy, where he studied the works of old masters. Having returned to France, he showed his works at a salon in Paris and quickly became a popular painter. His work fuses two styles – rococo and neoclassicism, he keenly painted genre scenes, in which one can find references to the views of Jean Jacques Rousseau. He was also a master portrait artist, in particular of young women. After the French revolution his popularity waned, and he died in poverty and loneliness. The portrait of Łańcut forms a part of the body of work of Greuze, and the depicted little girl is looking at the viewer flirtatiously, aware of her charms, a fact stressed by her „passionate” lips. This trait of subtle eroticism is frequently found in the portraits of young women painted by this artist. We regrettably do not know the name of the creator of the copy; the portrait is found in the 2nd floor of the Castle of Łańcut.