Lot 190: A maidservant

Jean-François-Gilles Colson (Dijon 1733-1803 Paris)
A maidservant
oil on canvas
16 3/8 x 12 7/8 in. (41.6 x 32.6 cm.)

Son of the miniaturist Jean-Baptiste Gilles, Jean-François Gilles, called Colson, seems to have been the pupil of Brother Imbert in Avignon, Nonnotte in Lyon, and Despax in Toulouse. He probably settled in Paris in 1759 and quickly specialised in portraits and genre scenes, working for a varied clientele of musicians, comedians, and military men. He was the director and coordinator of the buildings of Charles-Godefroy de la Tour d'Auvergne, Sovereign Duke of Bouillon, Prince of Turenne. This position forced him to become engineer, architect, and even sculptor at the splendid residence of the Bouillon family near Evreux, the Château de Navarre (destroyed 1834). Colson also wrote treatises on perspective and, among other things, an account of the 1775 Salon. He exhibited at the Salons of 1793, 1795, 1797 and, a year before his death, was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences and a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters of Dijon, his home town.

His best known painting, The Rest , of 1759, shows a young serving girl similar to the subject of the present work, sleeping after a hard day's labour. In both works Colson shows his admiration for Greuze but without the latter's sentimentality.