(Paris 1748–1821) The Lost Virtue, oil on panel, 49.5 x 65.4 cm, framed

We are grateful to Stephane Pinta, Paris, for his assistance in cataloguing this painting and thank Professor Hein-Thomas Schulze Altcappenberg, director of the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett and author of the catalogue raisonné on Johann Georg Wille, for confirming the work’s authenticity. The present painting is a characteristic work dating from the late Ancien Régime. By then, sentimental genre painting had established itself on a level almost equal to that of the highly-esteemed discipline of history painting, thanks to Jean Baptiste Greuze. In Paris, a veritable market had developed among collectors for this type of painting, which depicted scenes of everyday life in a contemporary milieu and in the tradition of Dutch genre painting. One of the most prominent exponents of this new type of painting was Pierre Alexandre Wille, the son of the German-born copper engraver Johann Georg Wille, who was admitted to the Paris Academy in 1774 following his apprenticeship with Greuze and Vien. Wille created a multitude of such genre scenes, which continue to be impressive in their keenly observed emotionality and frequent display of a slightly coquettish undertone, which is also noticeable in the present work.