The Broken Mirror
| The Broken Mirror | |
|---|---|
| Artist | Jean-Baptiste Greuze |
| Year | 1762–63 |
| Type | Oil on canvas, genre painting |
| Dimensions | 56 cm × 45.6 cm (22 in × 18.0 in) |
| Location | Wallace Collection, London |
.jpg){kind=link}
The Broken Mirror (French: Le Miroir brisé) is a 1763 genre painting by the French artist Jean-Baptiste Greuze. A moralistic allegory, it functions as a parable. While ostensibly it portrays a young woman who has broken a mirror, the chaotic interior and her dress presents her as a careless woman who has lost her virginity despite not being married and now regrets it.
It was one of a number of works Greuze intended to exhibit at the Salon of 1763 at the Louvre in Paris, although it may not have ended up being displayed. Today it is in the Wallace Collection in London, having been acquired in Rome by the Marquess of Hertford in 1845.