A pouting girl (La Petite boudeuse)

‘La Petite boudeuse’ stands out as one of Greuze’s most celebrated têtes de caractère, expressive head studies he typically executed in red chalk. Popularized through a print by Louis-Martin Bennet published in 1766, this intimate depiction of a sulking young girl in profile relates to a figure at the center of A reading from the Bible, Greuze’s painting from 1755 (Paris, Musée du Louvre). The image is known through different versions, the earliest one being a sheet formerly in the collection of Jean Bonna, of identical dimensions as the present drawing (see exhib. cat., New York, 2009, op. cit., no. 81; recently offered at Christie’s, Paris, 27 March 2019, lot 97); other versions are of varying quality, but generally weaker in execution (see exhib. cat., New York, 2009, op. cit., fig. 99). While the present drawing does not show pentimenti as those visible, for instance, in the girl’s chin in the Bonna drawing, it has been suggested by Strasser (op. cit.) and Edgar Munhall (quoted ibid.) that it may be a more polished, autograph replica of it.