The Spoiled Child

Jean-Baptiste Greuze completed this charming genre scene showing a young child in a moment of willful behavior. The work exemplifies Greuze's specialty: moralizing domestic scenes that entertained while conveying lessons about virtue and vice.

Greuze achieved fame in 18th-century France for sentimental narrative paintings that appealed to Enlightenment ideals about family and moral education. The philosopher Diderot particularly championed his work. Now at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, this painting demonstrates Greuze's skill at capturing childish expressions and the textures of everyday domestic life.