Jean-Baptiste Greuze

Watermark: none visible through lining.
Diderot sat for the present drawing in the artist's studio in 1766, at about age fifty-three, the same year he completed the final volumes of the “Encyclopedie”, begun in 1747 with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. The art critic had first written about Greuze in his review of the annual Salon in 1759, embracing the artist's narrative, “moral” painting. He continued to write with familiarity and approval of Greuze's work through 1766. A year after this portrait was completed, however, the relationship between the two men ended and Diderot made reference in his 1767 Salon review to “my late friend Greuze.” The seeds of this conflict may be detected in some of Diderot's reflections on Greuze's personality, noting that he wavered along the line between genius and madness.
Diderot was immensely pleased with Greuze's portrait and how it accurately captured his appearance, which he described: “I had a high forehead, very lively eyes, rather large features, a head totally in the character of an ancient orator, a guilelessness that nearly bordered on simplicity, on the rusticity of ancient times.” The profile format of this portrait lent itself easily to reproduction by numerous engravers, beginning with Augustin de Saint-Aubin in 1766. These prints made Greuze's image the iconic representation of Diderot, although he remarked of his printed likeness: “without the exaggeration of all the features in the engraving made after Greuze's drawing, I would be infinitely better. I have a face that fools the artist.”