The Father's Curse

The Father's Curse - The Ungrateful Son is an oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist Jean-Baptiste Greuze, first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1777, where it was unanimously praised by art critics such as Denis Diderot. It is now in the Louvre in Paris.[1]

The Father's Curse (1777) by Jean-Baptiste Greuze

Based on Diderot's account of the 1761 Salon,[2] the work shows a son announcing to his family that he is leaving to join the army, with his father forbidding it. The work forms a pair with Greuze's The Son Punished.[3]

The subject

The subject of the painting[4] is a scene from a family drama, when the son announces to his father that he is leaving for the army and the father curses him. The Curse of the Father, part of a diptych, is associated with another painting by Greuze, The Son Punished.

References
  1. "Catalogue entry" (in French).
  2. Essais sur la peinture, Salons de 1759, 1761, 1763, Hermann, Paris, 2007, pp.165-168.
  3. "Catalogue entry (The Son Punished)" (in French).
  4. Chanvalon, Jean-Baptiste Thibault de (1763). Voyage a la Martinique : contenant diverses observations sur la physique, l'histoire naturelle, l'agriculture, les moeurs, & les usages de cette isle, faites en 1751 & dans les années suivantes : lu à l'Académie royale des sciences de Paris en 1761. A Paris: Chez Cl. J.B. Bauche, libraire ... doi:10.5962/bhl.title.156200.


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