# Jean-Baptiste Greuze artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/jean-baptiste-greuze/
Profile generated: 2026-05-04T18:18:40.664Z
Quality: high confidence, strong sources

## Artist identity

- Birth date: 1725-08-21
- Death date: 1805-03-04
- Nationality: French
- Movements: French Rococo, Sentimental genre painting
- Common media: Oil painting, Pastel, Drawing, Engraving and prints

## About Jean-Baptiste Greuze

Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805) was a French painter, pastelist, and draftsman celebrated for sentimental genre scenes, moralizing domestic narratives, and expressive portraits. Active in Paris during the late Rococo period, Greuze built his reputation on paintings of family life and youthful virtue that appealed to Enlightenment sensibilities. His work attracted the admiration of critic Denis Diderot and found a wide public audience through reproductive engravings. Admitted to the Académie Royale as a genre painter, Greuze later sought recognition as a history painter but was rejected in that category, a setback that affected his later career. Today his paintings, drawings, and pastels are held by major museums including the Musée du Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Collectors encounter Greuze across Old Master sale categories worldwide.

## Common works and media

Oil-on-canvas genre scenes depicting domestic virtue or family drama are Greuze's signature works. Expressive portraits and idealized head studies of young women and children also appear frequently. Red-chalk and graphite drawings — including preparatory studies for known compositions — surface regularly at auction. Reproductive engravings after his paintings were produced in large numbers and remain collectible in their own right. Pastel portraits represent a smaller but notable category.

## Market and appraisal context

Jean-Baptiste Greuze maintains a deep and active auction footprint spanning more than two decades, with 244 catalogued lots of which 167 carry realized prices. Sale dates range from January 2001 through March 2026, and liquidity is stable at 19 lots per year in both the trailing and prior 12-month windows. The artist trades across a wide price spectrum: from €120 for reproductive engravings and attributions-after to $2,470,000 for fully attributed oil paintings at top-tier houses. The interquartile range ($1,300–$64,625) reflects meaningful dispersion driven primarily by medium, attribution confidence, and subject. Christie's and Sotheby's anchor the high end, while Artcurial, Osenat, Vanderkindere, Hampel, and other European houses provide consistent mid-market turnover. Finished oil-on-canvas genre scenes and portraits command the strongest prices; preparatory drawings in red chalk, ink wash, or graphite trade in an active middle tier; reproductive prints and follower copies populate the accessible tier. Recent notable results include €113,400 at Christie's Paris (June 2025, oil on canvas), €110,000 at De Baecque & Associés (June 2025), CHF 57,164 at Piguet Genève (June 2025, signed drawing), and $1,082,500 at Sotheby's (January 2013). The breadth of houses, lot volume, and long date range give collectors reliable market comparables across media.

## Auction-house-backed market evidence

Jean-Baptiste Greuze maintains a deep and active auction footprint spanning more than two decades, with 244 catalogued lots of which 167 carry realized prices. Sale dates range from January 2001 through March 2026, and liquidity is stable at 19 lots per year in both the trailing and prior 12-month windows. The artist trades across a wide price spectrum: from €120 for reproductive engravings and attributions-after to $2,470,000 for fully attributed oil paintings at top-tier houses. The interquartile range ($1,300–$64,625) reflects meaningful dispersion driven primarily by medium, attribution confidence, and subject. Christie's and Sotheby's anchor the high end, while Artcurial, Osenat, Vanderkindere, Hampel, and other European houses provide consistent mid-market turnover. Finished oil-on-canvas genre scenes and portraits command the strongest prices; preparatory drawings in red chalk, ink wash, or graphite trade in an active middle tier; reproductive prints and follower copies populate the accessible tier. Recent notable results include €113,400 at Christie's Paris (June 2025, oil on canvas), €110,000 at De Baecque & Associés (June 2025), CHF 57,164 at Piguet Genève (June 2025, signed drawing), and $1,082,500 at Sotheby's (January 2013). The breadth of houses, lot volume, and long date range give collectors reliable market comparables across media.

### Appraisal notes

Appraisily would combine these 244 auction records with the specifics of the piece in hand — medium (oil, pastel, red-chalk drawing, engraving), dimensions, signature or inscription details, condition (canvas relining, surface abrasion, foxing on paper), provenance chain, and scholarly catalogue attribution status — to place the work within the observed price distribution. A fully attributed oil genre scene with strong provenance would be benchmarked against the Christie's and Sotheby's results in the €100,000+ tier, while a drawing or follower work would be positioned against the P25–median band ($1,300–$16,000). Works listed as 'attributed,' 'circle of,' 'd'après,' or 'copy' should be valued conservatively, as the record shows many such lots fail to find buyers or realize only modest sums. Comparable lots are selected by matching medium, subject, date of execution where known, and attribution qualifier.

### Valuation factors

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### Collector notes

- Greuze offers collectors entry points at nearly every budget level. Reproductive engravings and follower works can be acquired for a few hundred euros, while autograph drawings and pastels are accessible in the €10,000–€60,000 range. Fully attributed oil paintings by Greuze himself typically start above €50,000 and can reach seven figures at Christie's or Sotheby's. The market is liquid and geographically distributed, with strong turnover at Parisian houses (Artcurial, Osenat, De Baecque), German and Swiss houses (Hampel, Koller, Piguet), and the London-New York anchor houses. Buyers should pay close attention to attribution qualifiers in catalogue descriptions: lots described as 'attributed to,' 'Nachfolge' (follower), 'd'après' (after), or 'copy' consistently trade at a fraction of autograph prices. The large body of copies and workshop production means provenance and scholarly opinion carry outsized weight. Sellers of securely attributed works with good provenance and condition can expect competitive bidding, particularly for genre-scene oils and expressive head studies. The stable lot count (19 per year in each of the last two 12-month windows) suggests consistent, non-speculative demand.

### Market caveats

- Greuze's output was widely copied and reproduced in engravings during and after his lifetime; attribution requires careful expert review. Many lots in the record are explicitly described as 'attributed,' 'copy,' 'd'après,' or 'Nachfolge' and may not be by the artist's own hand.
- The RKD records over 2,600 images associated with Greuze, indicating a large and complex body of work, copies, and attributed pieces that collectors must distinguish carefully.
- Price dispersion is extreme ($10 to $2,470,000) and largely reflects the attribution spectrum rather than a single market tier; median price ($16,000) is a more useful reference point than the maximum for most works encountered.
- Of 244 catalogued lots, 77 (31%) lack realized prices, indicating either buy-ins, withdrawals, or post-sale private negotiations that are not captured in the public record.
- Currency mix across USD, EUR, GBP, and CHF means direct price comparisons require currency normalization at the sale date.
- Death date conflict in authority files (4 March 1805 vs. 21 March 1805) does not affect market value but should be noted for catalogue accuracy.

### Market evidence sources

- undefined: https://appraisily.com/api/scraper-search/artists/jean-baptiste-greuze/seo-profile?recentLimit=24&relatedLimit=0
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-jean-baptiste-greuze-attrib-young-girl-pastel-painting-late-18th-early-19th-c-353-c-107e561ce9
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-jean-baptiste-greuze-french-school-reading-the-bible-oil-on-canvas-circa-1760-72-c-e934a508df
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-jean-baptiste-greuze-3076-c-b4c91c14ee
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-jean-baptiste-greuze-285-c-102968b2f6
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-jean-baptiste-greuze-282-c-fa4f83f48c
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-jean-baptiste-greuze-1725-1805-jeune-fille-au-ruban-bleu-19-c-ff85bab702
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-jean-baptiste-greuze-1725-1805-le-menage-ambulant-pierre-noire-plume-encre-lavis-rehauts-de-blanc-papier-signe-30-5x37-9-cm-31-c-26642ca943
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-jean-baptiste-greuze-tournus-1725-paris-1805-25-c-6f84a188b4

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine identity research from museum records, library authority files, and scholarly sources with auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. For Jean-Baptiste Greuze, this page draws on the Library of Congress Name Authority File, the RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History, VIAF, Wikidata, and the Museum of Modern Art collection record.

## Sources

- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q347139
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Greuze
- Library of Congress: https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n85252610
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/24611548/
- The Museum of Modern Art: https://www.moma.org/artists/62186
- RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/33710