Abstract

Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805) was famous for portraits and moralizing family scenes. At the same time, he achieved exceptional success in popularizing his art by engraving genre compositions. This article examines preparatory modellos for his family scenes and the organization of their engraving process. This aspect of his activity has not been yet studied, and his drawings are little covered in Russian-language literature. The study reconstructs step by step the activity of Greuze as a popularizer of family scenes in prints on the basis of the documents available to the author, analysis of original drawings and prints from Russian and foreign collections. It highlights such aspects of the creative process as preparation of compositions for engraving, achievement of specific qualities in the drawings in connection with the technologies of further reproduction, interaction with engravers and organization of creative and technical works within the special association. The author concludes that the master chose a limited number of engraving techniques by the criterion of the most accurate reflection of the artistic properties of the originals. By engaging a special circle of engravers, he created a monopoly association to control the process of creating, producing and selling prints. As a result, Greuze achieved outstanding and specific artistic qualities in his drawings intended for further duplication. Even contemporaries paid attention to the excellent quality of Greuze’s engravings, which amazingly accurately conveyed the individuality of his technique, and singled them out among the mass production of general circulation in eighteenth-century France. This system of creation and popularization of drawings was innovative in the field of engraving. It reveals practical and business abilities of the outstanding artist, as well as a new insight into Greuze’s artistry.

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