Broken Eggs1756
A young woman sits dejected beside a basket of broken eggs, while an older woman remonstrates with a young man who seems eager to slip away. The broken eggs are a pointed metaphor for lost innocence. More about this work
About this work
A young woman sits dejected beside a basket of broken eggs, while an older woman remonstrates with a young man who seems eager to slip away. The broken eggs are a pointed metaphor for lost innocence. Greuze painted the scene in Rome in 1756 and showed it at the Paris Salon the following year, where his moralising pictures of everyday life found an enthusiastic public. The careful finish and theatrical gestures reflect his ambition to give domestic subjects the seriousness of history painting.
Written by Ochre Editions.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
Jean Baptiste Greuze
French, 1725–1805 · Born in Tournus; died in Paris.
Greuze rose to fame at the Paris Salon in the later 1750s with moralising scenes of family life, sentimental and theatrical, which the critic Denis Diderot championed. Broken Eggs, shown at the Salon of 1757, tells a story of lost innocence through a single domestic incident. When the Academy received him in 1769 as a genre painter rather than a history painter, he withdrew from the Salon for many years.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Met has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 20.155.8
- Credit
- Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Type
- Paintings
- Department
- European Paintings
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
