Head of a Young Boy

This Head of a Young Boy, now at the Metropolitan Museum, dates from 1763 when Greuze was producing some of his finest work. The study of childhood expression was central to Greuze's art, reflecting Enlightenment ideas about the natural goodness of children advanced by Rousseau in Émile. Greuze's oil technique produced smooth, carefully modelled surfaces for his sentimental figure subjects, with particular attention to the expressive rendering of faces—weeping eyes, parted lips—that combined...

The boy's features are rendered with vivid naturalism, the warm flesh tones and lively expression captured through Greuze's characteristic technique of layered glazes over a warm ground.