Jew with Goose - a Romanian Jew holding a petition and a goose for bribery

Painted around 1880, this work depicts a figure from Romania's Jewish community—a man holding a goose, identified in traditional context as a form of informal gift or bribe used when approaching authorities or petitioning officials. Jewish communities had been present in Romania for centuries by this period, living under varying degrees of legal restriction and social complexity. Grigorescu's treatment of Jewish subjects reflects the ambivalence of his era: he painted Jewish figures with the same formal curiosity he brought to other rural types, but the subject matter carries the social meanings of its time. The painting should be understood as a document of nineteenth-century Romanian social reality, with all the complexity that implies. Grigorescu's figurative paintings of this period are notable for their directness; he rarely idealized or caricatured, but painted what he saw. Now at the National Museum of Art of Romania, the work demands engagement with both its artistic qualities and its historical context.

The figure is likely composed with Grigorescu's characteristic tonal directness—a dominant dark silhouette against a lighter ground, with the goose providing a secondary focal point through contrast of value or color. Face and hands would receive the most deliberate handling.