Bell's Miniature Series of Painters
BY
HAROLD ARMITAGE
LONDON
GEORGE BELL & SONS
1902
PREFACE
Although Paris, during the eighteenthcentury, became the home of artists ofmore subtle genius than Greuze, yet the picturesof no other painter of that alluring period havebecome so familiar to the people of our owncountry. Engravings, etchings, photographs,and reproductions in colour of the works ofGreuze abound on every hand; but many haveadmired the art who have not known so muchas the name of the artist, and more have knownhis name, and have still been far from anyknowledge of the story of his life.
Indeed, though brief narrations of whatGreuze did and suffered in this world haveappeared in volumes that have contained alsothe biographies of other artists, no book, inthis country, has been devoted solely to anaccount of his romantic career. Moreover, theaddition of twenty-one of the works of Greuzeto the possessions of the British nation by thebequest of the Wallace Collection, and theexhibition of nine more at the Art Gallery ofthe Corporation of London in 1902, must haveawakened curiosity concerning a painter whosepeculiar place in the evolution of art in France,{vi}whose character, and whose eventful life, makehis history interesting alike to those whodelight in pictures and to those who readbiography for its own sake.
The author hopes that this volume will makemore available than it has hitherto been anaccount of the principal happenings in thestory of an artist with whose charming picturesthe world has been for many years so intimatelyacquainted.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Innocence ... Frontispiece
The Village Bride (L'Accordée de Village)
The Pretty Laundress (La Belle Blanchisseuse)