Reading the Greuze Girl: The Daughter's Seduction

This essay challenges the generally accepted interpretation of Greuze's Young Girl Weeping over Her Dead Bird (1765) as an allegory of lost virginity by considering the painting in relation to eighteenth-century representations of the young girl in a range of discourses. The central contention is that the implied spectator to whom the picture is addressed is a quasi-paternal figure who disavows his own desire for the girl whilst nevertheless enjoying an eroticized intimacy with her. In thereby raising the specter of incest even as it represses it, the painting exemplifies deep-seated tensions within later eighteenth-century French culture. REPRESENTATIONS 117. Winter 2012 (C) The Regents of the University of California. ISSN 0734-6018, electronic ISSN 1533-855X, pages 86-119. All rights reserved. Direct requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content to the University of California Press at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/rep.2012.117.1.86.