Provenance

Commissioned as the altarpiece for the private chapel of Charles III, King of Spain [1716-1788], Madrid;[1] by inheritance to his son, Charles IV, King of Spain [1748-1819], Madrid, until 1808;[2] Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain [1768-1844], Madrid 1808-1813, and Point Breeze, Bordentown, New Jersey, from 1816;[3] (his estate sale, at Point Breeze by Anthony J. Bleecker, Bordentown, 25 June 1847, no. 44). (sale, Thomas & Sons Galleries, Philadelphia, 16 January 1852, no. 100).[4] Mr. Whelan, Philadelphia;[5] purchased by William Wilson Corcoran [1798-1888], Washington, by 1857;[6] gift 10 May 1869 to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art.
[1] The painting was relocated not long after its original installation because of lighting issues. Later inventories of the royal collections record the painting in the private chambers of the Prince de Asturias, now the Salon de Armas. See Jose Luis Sancho, "Mengs at the Palacio Real, Madrid," The Burlington Magazine, 139, no. 1133 (August 1997): 521, fig. 7.
[2] Charles IV abdicated the Spanish throne in March 1808, in favor of his son, Ferdinand VII, but the latter was forced to abdicate by Napoleon Bonaparte, the French emperor. Napoleon declared the Bourbon dynasty in Spain deposed, and installed his older brother, Joseph, on the Spanish throne; Napoleon had made Joseph King of Naples and Sicily in 1806.
[3] Joseph Bonaparte's arrival in Spain sparked a Spanish revolt against French rule and the beginning of the Peninsular War. Joseph remained on the Spanish throne with tenuous control of the country until the Battle of Vitoria in June 1813, when the main French forces were defeated by a British-led coalition and Joseph fled to Switzerland. Although the Duke of Wellington, head of the British forces in Spain, captured a large number of paintings that Joseph had taken from the Spanish royal palaces and had planned to take with him into exile, other paintings eluded capture and ultimately ended up with Joseph in the United States. Joseph arrived in the U.S. in August 1815, where he styled himself the Count de Survilliers. Before establishing himself at Point Breeze, he lived in both New York and Philadelphia. He would remain in the U.S. until 1832, returning briefly twice before returning to Europe, where he died in Florence in 1844. The Mengs painting was probably one of the paintings taken in 1813. It is listed in the inventory of Joseph's paintings made at his order and annotated by him, published by Georges Bertin, as an appendix to Joseph Bonaparte en Amerique, Paris, 1893: 418, no 108, Nativite de Jesus-Christ, Raphael Mengs, valued by Joseph himself at 80,000 francs. See also
Evan Morrison Woodward, Bonaparte's Park, and the Murats, Trenton, 1879: 55.
[4] According to information recorded for the painting by the Corcoran Gallery of Art (in NGA curatorial files), Joseph Bonaparte bequeathed the painting to his private physician. However, a number of doctors have been identified as such, and this does not explain the painting's appearance in two sales, in 1847 and 1852, following Joseph's death.
[5] Whelan's name is given on the original Corcoran Gallery of Art accession card, in NGA curatorial files.
[6] See Charles Lanman, Catalogue of W.W. Corcoran's Private Gallery, Washington, 1857: no. 2. Strangely, the entry for the painting in the Biography of Paintings kept by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, states "This painting was purchased by Mr. W.W. Corcoran for the sum of $1500.00 in the year 1873, and is from the collection of Joseph Bonaparte." (p. 2, copy in NGA curatorial files).

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2000

Bibliography

1857

Wikidata ID

Q46625410