On the Terrace
c. 1730/1735
Artist, French, 1695 - 1736
NGA, West Building, G-011-A
Artwork overview
-
Medium
oil on canvas
-
Credit Line
-
Dimensions
overall: 71.8 x 100 cm (28 1/4 x 39 3/8 in.)
framed: 90.2 x 117.5 x 8.9 cm (35 1/2 x 46 1/4 x 3 1/2 in.) -
Accession
1955.3.1
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
George M. Salting [1835-1909], London;[1] sold 1901 to (Thos. Agnew and Sons Ltd., London); sold the same year to (Asher Wertheimer, London).[2] Nikolaus von Uthemann [d. 1925; the name also spelled Utheman and Huthemann], St. Petersburg and Lucerne, by 1914;[3] sold May 1925 to (Lucerne Fine Art Co./Boehler & Steinmeyer, Lucerne);[4] sold to Ralph Harman [1873-1931] and Mary Batterman [d. 1951] Booth, Grosse Point, Michigan, by December 1926;[5] by inheritance to their daughter and son-in-law, William D. and Virginia Booth Vogel, Milwaukee; gift 1955 to NGA.
[1] According to the article "Mr. Asher Wertheimer's Exhibition," Connoisseur V (April 1903): supplement.
[2] The Getty Provenance Index kindly provided a copy of the page from the Agnew's stock book (in NGA curatorial files) that lists the painting as number 9797, titled Fête Champetre. The stock book confirms the purchase from Salting, with half profit to Charles Fairfax Murray, and the sale to Wertheimer.
[3] Frederick William Steinmeyer, letter to Ralph Harman Booth, 10 February 1926, copy in NGA curatorial files. The letter reads: "Afterwards it was in the collection of His Excellency von Utheman, who was the private secretary to the Czar of Russia. It hung in his palace at St. Petersburg up to the time of the Revolution, when some of his faithful servants took this picture with other valuables to the protection of the British Consul, who after the War [World War I] returned them to Utheman." The 1914 date comes from information about the painting provided by Steinmeyer along with this letter to Booth.
[4] See note 3. The letter continues: "We bought the picture directly from His Excellency von Utheman in Geneva. His Excellency died this summer in Lucerne." As the letter was written in February, the second sentence was probably meant to read "this past summer," putting Von Uthemann's death in 1925. A letter to Ralph Harman Booth dated Lucerne, 21 August 1925, on letterhead that reads "The Lucerne Fine Art Co. Ltd., Management Boehler & Steinmeyer" indicates that the picture was by then in Munich and quotes the asking price. The Getty Provenance Index also provided a copy of the page from the Julius Bohler records that lists the painting as stock number 134-25, bought from Uthemann on 28 May 1925.
[5] The Booths lent the painting to an exhibition that opened 2 December 1926 at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1902
Exhibition of a Selection of Works by French and English Painters of the Eighteenth Century, Corporation of London Art Gallery, 1902, no. 134, as Group in a Garden.
1926
A Loan Exhibition of French Paintings, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1926, no. 43, repro.
1927
Fifth Loan Exhibition of Old and Modern Masters, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1927, no. 85, as Fête Galante.
1928
Loan Exhibition of Paintings from Memling, Holbein and Titian to Renoir and Picasso, Reinhardt Galleries, New York, 1928, no. 14, repro., as Fête Champêtre.
1933
A Century of Progress: Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933, no. 223, as Fete Champetre.
Bibliography
1963
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 316, repro.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 99.
1968
National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 87, repro.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 260, repro.
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 330, no. 442, color repro.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 301, repro.
2009
Conisbee, Philip, et al. French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2009: no. 79, 365-368, color repro.
Wikidata ID
Q20177845