A Mother Feeding her Child (The Happy Mother)

Provenance

David Grenier, Middleburg, until 1712; sold at auction, Middleburg, August 18, 1712, no. 73 for 32 florins [price given by Hoet 1752]. Jacques Clemens, canon of St. Bavo’s Cathedral, Ghent (died 1779); sold in his estate sale, Ghent, June 21, 1779, no. 170 for 457 florins to Rijsschoot [according to an annotated copy of the sale catalogue in the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague]. Emanuel-Augustin-Joseph van den Meersche, by 1791; sold in his sale, Salle de la Confrerie de St. George, Ghent, July 12, 1791, lot 103 for £335 to Rijschot [according to an annotated copy of the sale catalogue in Bibliothèque des Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels]. Countess Vilain XIV (died 1853), castle of Wetteren, by 1827 [according to the introduction of the catalogue of the May 2, 1857 sale of the collection of le Comte Philippe Vilain XIV]; at her death to her husband le Comte Philippe Vilain XIV (died 1856); sold in his sale, Pillet, Paris, May 2, 1857, no. 7 for 12,300 francs to the Marquis de Rhodes [price and buyer according to an annotated copy of the sale catalogue in the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague]. Presumably Prince Anatole Demidoff, Villa San Donato, near Florence (died 1870); by descent to his nephew Prince Paul Demidoff (died 1885) and later to Paul Demidoff’s widow Helena Troubetskoi, Pratolino, near Florence [according to an entry in William French’s 1889 travel notebook dated April 19, 1889, the painting was on view with the Demidoff collection in Pratolino, Art Institute archives]; included in the group of 13 paintings from the Demidoff collection sold to trustees of the Art Institute through Durand-Ruel, Paris in 1890; purchase price reimbursed by Edson Keith, 1890.

Official Citations