National Gallery of Art :: The Collection :: Portrait of a Young Man and His Tutor
  • Inscription
  • Provenance
  • Exhibition History
  • Bibliography

Overview

No overview.

Inscription

lower right: N. De / Largillierre / F. 1685.

Marks and Labels

null

Provenance

Marenzi [Marenzy] de Tollenaere, Bruges;[1] (his sale, Hauw, Bruges, 20 June 1828, no. 63, as Le Dauphin de France avec son précepteur M. De Bossuet);[2] Baron François de Marenzi-de Marensfeld [d. 1845], Bruges; (his estate sale, Moulaert, Bruges, 13 May 1850, and days following, no. 165);[3] presumably bought in and then by inheritance to the Dowager Madame de Doncquers (or Donckers), Bruges, as of 1873; Sénateur Prosper Crabbe [1827-1889] and his wife [née Clémence Allard], Brussells; (his estate sale, Galerie Sedelmeyer, Paris, 12 June 1890, no. 38, as Bossuet et le Grand Dauphin); Antoine-Alfred-Agénor, 11th duc de Gramont [1851-1925], Paris; (his estate sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 22 May 1925, no. 10, as Bossuet et le Grand Dauphin); Joseph Fuller Feder [d. 1944],[4] New York; by inheritance to his widow, Edith Mosler Feder [d. 1960]; (French & Company, New York), by 1954;[5]; sold 1955 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York; gift 1961 to NGA.

[1] Julia Armstrong-Totten, senior research editor at the Project for the Study of Collecting and Provenance, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, provided information about the painting's Marenzi and Feder provenance; Louis de Strycker researched the histories of the Marenzi, Crabbe, and de Doncquers families; and Sophie Pietri drew attention to Prosper Crabbe's patronage of Charles Baudelaire.

[2] Getty Provenance Index databases, catalogue B-468a.

[3] "Catalogue d'une belle, riche et nombreuse collection de tableaux des écoles flamande, hollandaise, allemande, française et italienne...le tout ayant formé le beau cabinet de feu Messire Baron F. de Marenzi-de Marensfeld, en sonvivant rentier et propriétaire à Bruges, dont la vente publique aura lieu en la maison mortuaire, rue de Terre-Neuve, section A 6, No 6, au dit Bruges" (No 165. LARGILLIERE (N. DE). Le dauphin de France avec son précepteur le grand Bossuet; figures de grandeur naturelle. Ce beau tableau est d'une frappante vérité, les draperies sont jetées avec ampleur; un grand chien à tâches blanches et brunes est sur le devant; ce délicieux morceaux [sic] réunit à une exécution habile la plus grande transparence. H. 1 M. 45 C. L. 1 M. 14 C. T.).

[4] According to his New York Times obituary, 12 May 1944, Joseph Fuller Feder was a private banker and yachtsman.

[5] An annotation on the back of the photograph of the painting in the Frick Art Reference Library, New York ("Largillière 524-2a"), dated 7 February 1947, corroborates the fact that Feder's widow inherited the portrait. Mitchell Samuels, of French & Company, in a letter to John Walker of 31 March 1954 (in NGA curatorial files), described the painting as one "that we have had for some time" and that "for nearly thirty years...was in this country." After the 2009 publication of this note in the NGA systematic catalogue, the estate of Joseph McCrindle (1923-2008), who was Mrs. Feder's grandson, kindly provided the Gallery with an early 1950s photograph of the painting hanging in the Feder apartment at The Sherry-Netherland on Fifth Avenue, New York, and a letter of 23 January 1954 from French & Company to Mrs. Feder, indicating they had the painting in storage for her. The letter also includes a proposal to purchase the painting and other items from Mrs. Feder.

Exhibition History

1935
Troisième Centenaire de L'Académie Française, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, 1935, no. 266, repro. as Bossuet et Le Dauphin.
1981
Largillierre and the Eighteenth-Century Portrait, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1981, no. 15, repro. as Portrait of Jacques-Bossuet and Louis Auguste de Bourbon, Duc du Maine.
2003
Nicolas de Largillierre, 1656-1746, Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, 2003-2004, no. 42, repro.

Bibliography

1956
Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Colllection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1951-56. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida and Fern Rusk Shapley. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1956: 114, no. 43, repro.
1959
Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 347, repro.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 72
1968
European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1968: 63, repro.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 188, repro.
1977
Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 292-293, fig. 262.
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 326, no. 432, color repro.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 220, repro.
2004
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 183, no. 144, color 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. 66, 293-298, color repro.
2012
Grasselli, Margaret M., and Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., eds. The McCrindle Gift: A Distinguished Collection of Drawings and Watercolors. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2012: 4, 5, 12 n. 13, 14.

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