Study of a young woman, seated and resting her face on her left hand

The pensive young woman depicted here in a bold brushwork recalls a presumed study for the Melancholy Greuze executed in a similar technique now in The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (inv. ОР-14768; E. Munhall, Greuze the draftsman, exhib. cat., New York, The Frick Collection, 2002, no. 12, ill.). The model's confused state and pose compare to those of the mothers in Greuze's early composition study for Sophronie (in. ОР-14774, The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg; E. Munhall, op. cit., no. 68, ill.).