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Lot Essay
Le Petit Boudeur or Sulky Boy replicates, with minor changes, the child Greuze depicted in the lower right corner of his picture The Neapolitan Gesture (fig. 1), painted in Rome in the early months of 1757. There, the boy looks directly at the viewer rather than down and wears a reddish-brown jacket rather than the grey one represented here. The same young model posed for the child shown trying to repair a broken egg in The Broken Eggs (fig. 2 ), signed and dated 1756, and in a preparatory drawing for the subject (fig. 3). He would have been one of the picturesque models of various ages Greuze hired and fired capriciously during his busy sojourn in the Eternal City. His elegant garb suggests that he was the younger brother of the richly-attired maiden shown dismissing her disguised suitor.
It is probable that Greuze exhibited this picture along with The Broken Eggs and The Neapolitan Gesture at the first Salon exhibition after his return from Rome in 1757, under No. 120: Deux Têtes; l'un d'un petit garcon, l'autre d'une petite fille. No dimensions were provided in the catalogue, and no critic of the Salon that year made reference to the work. However, Hélène Guicharnaud has recently identified this Sulky Boy and its pendant Girl with a Coral Necklace as works belonging to Greuze's patron and host during his Italian sojourn, the abbé Gougenot, who also owned and lent to the Salon The Broken Eggs and The Neapolitan Gesture. Although neither Guicharnaud nor anyone else to date has linked Gougenot's Sulky Boy with the Cook Collection picture, the descriptions of it in Gougenot's testament and inventaire après décès that Guicharnaud published leave no doubt on the subject: '..je donne et legue a Mr Jean-Baptiste Pigalle Sculpteur Professeur de l'académie Royalle de Peinture et de Sculpture Trois Tableaux peints par Mr Greuze dans leurs bordures dorés [sic]. Le premier d'un pied deux pouces trois lignes de haut [0.38 m] sur onze pouces trois lignes de large [0.30 m] fait a Rome représentant le Buste d'un petit Garçon en corps, avec un habit gris, cheveux blonds, tête découverte, et yeux baisséz' (quoted from Gougenot's testament by Guicharnaud, p. 44); 'Trois petites tableaux peints par Monsieur Greuze dans leurs bordeurs dorées. Le premier d'un pied deux pouces trois lignes de haut sur onze pouces trois lignes de large fait a rome representant le bust d'un petit garcon en corps avec un habit grincheux [sic] blonds tête découverte les yeux baissés (IX). Le second de pareille grandeur que le precedent et fait aussi a Rome representant le buste d'une petit fille regardant en haut ayant un fichu avec un collier de corail rouge auquel pend une petite croix (X) (quoted from Gougenot's inventaire après décès by Guicharnaud, p. 46).
The description of The Sulky Boy in the catalogue of the anonymous sale held in Paris on June 7, 1853 is so detailed as to guarantee that it is the same as the Cook collection picture, but it also sums up its remarkable pictorial character: 'Un joli garcon de dix à douze ans est représenté en buste, la tête couverte de cheveux blonds et boucles. Une petite moue donne à sa phisionomie une piquante expression de bouderie enfantine. Morceau traité en etude et d'une grande legerté d'exécution,' the phrase 'traité en étude' characterizing the loose, painterly manner of its execution - unlike the highly polished manner of the painting from which it was derived, The Neapolitan Gesture. Similarly, the catalogue of the Febvre sale of 25-27 November 1858 described it as 'Cette étude largement executée'. Finally, Sir Herbert Cook, in his 1915 catalogue of the Cook collection, quoted Sir Claude Philips's grudging praise of The Sulky Boy when exhibited in 1902, in a comment that reveals the sophisticated connoisseur's opinion of Greuze by that time: 'The Head of a Boy has great breadth of design, and a pathos of childish sweetness, with which Greuze sometimes secures pardon for heinous offenses' (Daily Telegraph, 21 June 1902). For in addition to its visual appeal as a freely painted study, The Sulky Boy exhibits Greuze's uncanny ability to evoke visually the most subtle states of mind - in this case, that of a pouting child. This unique talent would later manifest itself in Greuze's celebrated têtes d'expression.
Edgar Munhall
It is probable that Greuze exhibited this picture along with The Broken Eggs and The Neapolitan Gesture at the first Salon exhibition after his return from Rome in 1757, under No. 120: Deux Têtes; l'un d'un petit garcon, l'autre d'une petite fille. No dimensions were provided in the catalogue, and no critic of the Salon that year made reference to the work. However, Hélène Guicharnaud has recently identified this Sulky Boy and its pendant Girl with a Coral Necklace as works belonging to Greuze's patron and host during his Italian sojourn, the abbé Gougenot, who also owned and lent to the Salon The Broken Eggs and The Neapolitan Gesture. Although neither Guicharnaud nor anyone else to date has linked Gougenot's Sulky Boy with the Cook Collection picture, the descriptions of it in Gougenot's testament and inventaire après décès that Guicharnaud published leave no doubt on the subject: '..je donne et legue a Mr Jean-Baptiste Pigalle Sculpteur Professeur de l'académie Royalle de Peinture et de Sculpture Trois Tableaux peints par Mr Greuze dans leurs bordures dorés [sic]. Le premier d'un pied deux pouces trois lignes de haut [0.38 m] sur onze pouces trois lignes de large [0.30 m] fait a Rome représentant le Buste d'un petit Garçon en corps, avec un habit gris, cheveux blonds, tête découverte, et yeux baisséz' (quoted from Gougenot's testament by Guicharnaud, p. 44); 'Trois petites tableaux peints par Monsieur Greuze dans leurs bordeurs dorées. Le premier d'un pied deux pouces trois lignes de haut sur onze pouces trois lignes de large fait a rome representant le bust d'un petit garcon en corps avec un habit grincheux [sic] blonds tête découverte les yeux baissés (IX). Le second de pareille grandeur que le precedent et fait aussi a Rome representant le buste d'une petit fille regardant en haut ayant un fichu avec un collier de corail rouge auquel pend une petite croix (X) (quoted from Gougenot's inventaire après décès by Guicharnaud, p. 46).
The description of The Sulky Boy in the catalogue of the anonymous sale held in Paris on June 7, 1853 is so detailed as to guarantee that it is the same as the Cook collection picture, but it also sums up its remarkable pictorial character: 'Un joli garcon de dix à douze ans est représenté en buste, la tête couverte de cheveux blonds et boucles. Une petite moue donne à sa phisionomie une piquante expression de bouderie enfantine. Morceau traité en etude et d'une grande legerté d'exécution,' the phrase 'traité en étude' characterizing the loose, painterly manner of its execution - unlike the highly polished manner of the painting from which it was derived, The Neapolitan Gesture. Similarly, the catalogue of the Febvre sale of 25-27 November 1858 described it as 'Cette étude largement executée'. Finally, Sir Herbert Cook, in his 1915 catalogue of the Cook collection, quoted Sir Claude Philips's grudging praise of The Sulky Boy when exhibited in 1902, in a comment that reveals the sophisticated connoisseur's opinion of Greuze by that time: 'The Head of a Boy has great breadth of design, and a pathos of childish sweetness, with which Greuze sometimes secures pardon for heinous offenses' (Daily Telegraph, 21 June 1902). For in addition to its visual appeal as a freely painted study, The Sulky Boy exhibits Greuze's uncanny ability to evoke visually the most subtle states of mind - in this case, that of a pouting child. This unique talent would later manifest itself in Greuze's celebrated têtes d'expression.
Edgar Munhall