Broken Eggs
Artist: Jean-Baptiste Greuze (French, 1725–1805)
Original Dimensions: 28 3/4" x 37"
Location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
About Artwork: (1756) "In moralizing genre subjects such as this, Greuze bypassed the arcane subject matter of history painting to appeal to a broad public. At the Salon of 1757, a critic even declared that the pose of this young servant girl, whose loss of virginity is symbolized by the broken eggs, was worthy of a history painter. Greuze struck upon such subjects, based in part on seventeenth-century Dutch painting, while still a student in Rome, though he would spend the next decades stubbornly pursuing the official title of history painter." - (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

Panel content
Panel content