Jean Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805) French, Oil on Canvas. Titled 'Study of Young Girls Head'. Oil on Canvas. Traces of Christies Auction Stencils on the stretcher. Overall Size: 25 1/8 x 21 7/8 in. Sight SizeL 16 1/4 x 13 in. Thickness: About 3 in. #1386 . Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725 - 1805) was active/lived in France, Italy. Jean Baptiste Greuze is known for History, sentimental middle class domestic genre and sensuous female portrait painting. An 18th-century painter of melodramatic genre, morality lessons, female figures and portraits whose subjects included Mozart and Benjamin Franklin, Jean-Baptiste Greuze was born in the Burgundy region of France. He spent most of his career in Paris, where he was mentored by a portrait artist from Lyon named Grandon (Grondom). This artist was an advocate for the young Greuze, whose father had discouraged him from following his art talents. In Paris, Greuze worked from the live model at the Royal Academy. Gradually his work attracted the attention of members of the nobility such as the family of Madame d'Epinay, a French writer whose love affairs included Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Denis Diderot. In 1755, Greuze's painting, Father Reading the Bible, was judged accomplished enough to merit much encouragement from Academicians. That same year, he went to Italy with Abbé Louis Gougenot, who had influence among fine art professionals, which led to Greuze being elected him an honorary member of the Royal Academy in Italy because of his accomplishments in allegory and mythology. However, he was not encouraged by the exposure he got in Italy, and returned to Paris in search of better training for portraiture, genre and figure work.