The Broken Mirror
| The Broken Mirror | |
|---|---|
.jpg) | |
| Artist | Jean-Baptiste Greuze |
| Year | 1762–63 |
| Type | Oil on canvas, genre painting |
| Dimensions | 56 cm × 45.6 cm (22 in × 18.0 in) |
| Location | |
The Broken Mirror (French: Le Miroir brisé) is an oil on canvas genre painting by the French artist Jean-Baptiste Greuze, from 1762-1763.[1][2][3] It is held at the Wallace Collection, in London.[4]
History and description
[edit source]A moralistic allegory, it functions as a parable. While ostensibly it portrays a young woman who has broken a mirror, the chaotic interior and her dress presents her as a careless woman who has lost her virginity, despite not being married and now regrets it.[5]
It was one of a number of works Greuze intended to exhibit at the Salon of 1763 at the Louvre, in Paris, although it may not have ended up being displayed.[6] Today it is in the Wallace Collection, in London, having been acquired in Rome by the Marquess of Hertford in 1845.[7]
References
[edit source]- ↑ Bailey p.33
- ↑ Munhall p.100-101
- ↑ Conisbee p.138
- ↑ Wallace Collection
- ↑ Wallace Collection
- ↑ Fried p.XV
- ↑ Wallace Collection
Bibliography
[edit source]- Bailey, Colin B. Jean-Baptiste Greuze: The Laundress. Getty Publications, 2000.
- Conisbee, Philip. French Genre Painting in the Eighteenth Century. National Gallery of Art, 2007.
- Fried, Michael. Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot. University of Chicago Press, 1988.
- Munhall, Edgar. Greuze the Draftsman. Merrell, 2002.
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