A woman dabbing her eyes with a cloth, a basket under her arm

Related to a picture of La servante congédiée painted by Etienne Jeaurat in 1748, now lost, but known through an engraving by Jean-Joseph Baléchou (1716-1764) published by Edme Jeaurat, the artist's brother (fig. 1). The print depicts a weeping maidservant dismissed by her mistress. She is carrying her belongings while her mistress counts her money and is visibly upset, the reason for which is explained by the legend of the print: 'Jour de Dieu depéchons vite, que l'on détale Ne nous faisons point tirailler Vous alterés ma bourse et le foi conjugale C'est trop prendre et trop travailler' ('It is the Day of the Lord we must not tarry let's not quibble You have exploited my purse and conjugal faith That's taking too much and working too hard').
A very similar drawing by Jeaurat is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (P. Stein, Eighteenth-century French Drawings in New York Collections, exhib. cat., New York, 1999, no. 38) while another was formerly in the Goncourt Collection (E. Launay, Les frères Goncourt collectionneurs de dessins, Paris, 1991, no. 147).