French School, 18th Century

Purchased in 1853 for Eliza Eldridge (née Hallett, 1828–1895), Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, wife of Captain Asa P. Eldridge, by Commodore Vanderbilt, who had sailed to Europe earlier that year on the North Star, the ship commanded by her husband;

Thence by inheritance to her nephew, Dr. Clifton Ellis Wing (1848–1911), Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts;

From whose estate acquired by Ross Maynard, for Shreve, Crump & Low, Co., Boston;

Mrs. Clara Ingalls, Boston, Massachusetts, by 1919;

Thence by descent in the family to a private collector;

By whom anonymously sold, New York, Sotheby's, 5 June 1986, lot 116 (as George Romney, Portrait of Richard Cumberland);

Where acquired by the present owner.