Jean-Baptiste Greuze

Acquired from the artist by Count Nicolas Demidoff (1773-1828), Villa San Donato, Florence;
By descent to his son, Anatole N. Demidoff (1812-1870), Prince of San Donato, Villa San Donato, Florence;
His sale ("Collections de San Donato"), Paris, Pillet, 24 February 1870, lot 119 (unsold?);
By inheritance to his nephew, Paul Demidoff, Prince of San Donato (1839-1925);
His sale ("Palais de San Donato"), Florence, Villa San Donato (sale on site), 15 March, 1880, lot 1473;
There acquired by Cornelius Vanderbilt 2nd (1843-1899);
By descent to his daughter Countess Gladys Moore Vanderbilt Széchenyi;
By whom given to her daughter Sylvia Széchenyi, (later Countess Anthony Szapáry), Christmas 1943;
Thence by descent to the present owners.

The Art Amateur, vol. 2, no. 5, April 1880, p. 99;
C. Normand, J.B. Greuze, Paris 1892, p. 3, print after the painting by Hédouin reproduced; p. 27 painting reproduced;
J. Martin and C. Masson, "Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint et dessiné de Jean-Baptiste Greuze," in C. Mauclair, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Paris 1906, p. 61, cat. no. 968 (" Le Petit Paysan"); p. 62, cat. no. 987 ("Jeune Paysan Hollandais").

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work on a wooden panel is in good condition. The panel is flat, unreinforced and in original condition on the reverse. There is a slightly visible vertical crack in the middle of the top edge, running about 1 ½ inches. The painting may be slightly dirty, but nonetheless it looks well as is. There are very few retouches visible under ultraviolet light; there are two or three spots around the nose, a few in the sleeve on the left, and one or two in the lower right. There is some frame abrasion around the edges. This is a deftly and quite quickly painted work that has certainly survived very well.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Greuze’s masterful depictions of children are some of his most beguiling works.  The Young Peasant Boy exemplifies the artist’s interest in a specific genre of allegorical portraiture — pictures not meant to be pure likenesses of a specific sitter, but meant to evoke in the viewer an emotional response.  As with the têtes de fantasie  painted by artists such as Fragonard, these “portraits” were creations of Greuze’s imagination.  The boy here depicted, in his rustic red vest, appears to be less the child of a farmer than that of an upper-class family in the guise of a peasant child.  However, what Greuze has perfectly instilled in his portrayal, through the direct and guileless gaze of this young boy, is the unadulterated innocence of childhood.

This painting is a rare example of a work by Greuze with unbroken provenance since the artist’s time, having been in only two family collections since it was painted.  It was acquired from the artist by Count Nicolas Demidoff who, along with his son Anatole, assembled one of the greatest private art collections of the 19^th century.  The Demidoff family had amassed their wealth in the previous century by supplying iron and weapons to the Russian Imperial armies.  Though Nicolas squandered a great deal of his inheritance, he married advantageously into the Stroganov family which placed him in the highest ranks of Russian nobility and restored his financial security.  In 1815, he became the Russian Envoy in Florence where he would spend most of his remaining years.  He built a grand Palladian palace, the Villa San Donato, outside Florence and filled it with his ever growing art collection.  He favored French 18th century art, a school that was highly esteemed in Russian aristocratic circles and, in addition to paintings by Greuze (of which he owned over 20), his collection included numerous works by Boucher, Fragonard and Vernet.  However, he also built up an impressive collection of Italian, Flemish and Dutch Old Masters.  Upon his death in 1828, his estate was divided between his two sons, Paul and Anatole.  Anatole remained in Tuscany where he received the title of Prince of San Donato for his efforts in founding a silk manufactory there.  He avidly continued adding to the family art collection with a predilection for contemporary French painters such as Delacroix, Ingres and Delaroche.  In poor health during the last decade of his life, Anatole began to disperse some of his collection in auctions in the late 1860s, with the major portion sold in a series of sales in 1870 in Paris shortly before he died.  Upon Anatole’s death in 1870, his nephew Paul (1839-1925) inherited what remained of the collection.

The Young Peasant Boy was included in the 1870 sale in Paris as lot 119, Le Petite Paysan, where it was one of 19 pictures by Greuze and reproduced in the catalogue with an engraving after the painting by Edmond Hédouin (fig. 1).  It appears that it did not sell at that auction as a decade later, when Paul auctioned the rest of the collection in situ at the Villa San Donato in 1880, the painting appears as lot 1473, reproduced with a black and white photograph, under the title Jeune Paysan Hollandais.  The sale in Florence at the villa was a major art world event, covered in newspapers and art journals.  Many prominent American collectors flocked to Florence to participate or sent their agents.  As James Jackson Jarves, U.S. Consul in Florence as well as an art collector and critic, wrote in his report on the sale in The New York Times:  “As most of the American purchases were made through my instrumentality, I am able to give a general idea of the class of objects which go to America.  Among them is the beautiful portrait by Greuze…called in the catalogue ‘The Young Dutch Peasant Boy.’  It is as fine an example of the painter as exists, of a youthful head, done in his most delicate, transparent manner.  Americans may well be proud to have this…”.¹  As reported in The Art Amateur (see Literature) the Young Peasant Boy was purchased for $5,400 by a member of the Vanderbilt family, most likely Cornelius Vanderbilt, 2^nd for whom Jarves probably acted as an agent.²  Cornelius was the grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt, called the“Commodore” (1794-1877), who made a fortune in railroads and shipping.  Cornelius 2^nd was an avid collector, but is perhaps best known as the builder of The Breakers, his “Gilded Age” Italian Renaissance style summer home in Newport, R.I. designed by Richard Morris Hunt.  The Young Peasant Boy has descended in the Vanderbilt family to the present owners.

 

1.  See J.J. Jarves, “The Demidoff Art Sale,” in The New York Times, 8 May 1880.
2.  See C.J. Burns, From Medici to Bourbon: The Formulation of Taste and Evolution of a Vanderbilt Style, University of London, MA Thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, 2007, p. 12.