[The Broken Pitcher (La Cruche Cassée)]
LIFE OF GREUZE
EARLY YEARS
The way of life in which Jean Baptiste Greuze spent his childhood and his youth was not different from that of most other artists. His parents were obscure people, who had no riches; and his father opposed his desire to be a painter.
For many years, even his own countrymen who wrote of Greuze, gave the date of his birth any time between 1725 and 1732; but it is known now that the accurate date is August 21, 1725, the one which has since been inscribed on the modest house in Tournus, near Mâcon, where his father and mother were living when the artist was born.