The Paternal Blessing, or The Departure of Basile

Prints and Drawings

c. 1769

Jean-Baptiste Greuze
French, 1725-1805

The second half of the 1700s was an age of great sentiment; tears flowed profusely in art and literature. Jean-Baptiste Greuze in particular capitalized on this cult of feeling.
The Paternal Blessing was an illustration for a pictorial narrative by Greuze called Bazile and Thibault, or The Two Educations. It told the story of two brothers, one good and one bad. Reflecting theories of nature versus nurture espoused by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78), Bazile became a good man because he had been breast-fed as an infant at home, while Thibault became a bad man because he had been sent away to a wet nurse. Here, Bazile receives his father’s blessing before setting out on his own.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Jean Baptiste Greuze
Title: The Paternal Blessing, or The Departure of Basile
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1759–1805
Medium: Pen and brown ink, brush and black ink, gray wash and graphite, with traces of scraping, on tan laid paper, laid down on tan wove board
Dimensions: 37.3 × 50.8 cm (14 11/16 × 20 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Mrs. Leigh B. Block
Reference Number: 1955.1003
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/84277/manifest.json

Jean Martin, Oeuvre de J.-B. Greuze (Paris, 1908), no. 256.
The Art Institute of Chicago Annual Report (1955-1956), p. 21 (ill.).
Edgar Munhall, “Greuze and Protestant Spirit,” The Art Quarterly, 27 (1964), pp. 3-23 (ill.).
Jean Seznec and Jean Adhemar, Salons, 4 (Oxford, 1967), p. 108, no. 46.
R. Fernandez, “Greuze’s Paternal Blessing,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, 5 (1970), pp. 91-95 (ill.).
Harold Joachim, French Drawings and Sketchbooks of the 18th Century (Chicago, 1979), no. 1E11.
Emma Barker, Greuze and the Painting of Sentiment (Cambridge, 2001).

Paris, Salon, 1769.
Minneapolis, Minn., The University of Minnesota, University Gallery, “The Eighteenth Century: One Hundred Drawings by One Hundred Artists,” 1961, cat. 35.
New York, Wildenstein and Company, “Master Drawings from The Art Institute of Chicago,” October 17-November 30, 1963, n.p., cat. 56, as “The Return of the Prodigal Son.”
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Selected Works of 18th Century French Art in the Collections of The Art Institute of Chicago,” January 24-March 28, 1976, pp. 62-63, cat. 54 (ill.).
Paris, Musée du Louvre, “Dessins français de l’Art Institute de Chicago de Watteau à Picasso,” October 15, 1976-January 17, 1977, n.p., cat. 15 (ill.).
Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Städtische Galerie im Städelschen Kunstinstitut, “Französische Zeichnungen aus dem Art Institute of Chicago,” February 10-April 10, 1977, pp. 56-57, cat. 24 (ill.).
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Gods and (Super)heroes: Drawing in an Age of Revolution”, November 16, 2017 - April 1, 2018.

General Brunet-Denon (Baron D. Vivant-Denon) [Lugt 779]; sold, Hôtel des Ventes Mobilières, Paris, February 2-15, 1846, lot 186. Lucien Guiraud (died 1954), Paris [according to Joachim 1979]. Sold by Dr. Otto Wertheimer, Paris, to the Art Institute, 1955.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.