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- Titles Les Baigneuses (Female Bathers in a Landscape) (Proper)
- Artist Jean-Baptiste Pater, French, 1695 - 1736
- Medium oil on canvas
- Dimensions 51 1/4 x 38 1/4 in. (130.2 x 97.2 cm) frame: 62 × 49 1/8 × 3 7/8 in. (157.5 × 124.8 × 9.8 cm)
- Credit Line Eugenia Woodward Hitt Collection, 1991.248
- Work Type painting
- Classification Paintings
- On View
- Signature Unsigned
- Marks Canvas stamp, lower right, between stretcher keys, light blue ink, two circles [illegible]
- Inscription Verso, top stretcher bar, upper left, ink on sticker with red boarder: 15340 Verso, top stretcher bar, upper left, typed label: Rect. #3810-3, 3/26/59 to WILDENSTEIN & CO., INC. / Cat. 26: THE BATH, by Pater / (Hahn: Van I) Verso, top stretcher bar, center, white chalk: WH D ILT [? Illegible] Verso, top stretcher bar, center, black ink: WP18 [? Illegible] Verso, top stretcher bar, upper right, printed blue sticker: NO. / 01 [in graphite] / W. S. BUDWORTH & SON / PACKERS & SHIPPERS / 424 WEST 52ND ST. NEW YORK, N.Y. Verso, right stretcher bar, top right, white chalk: X [encircled, centered on drill hole] Verso, right stretcher bar, bottom right, white chalk: B Verso, right stretcher bar, bottom right, white chalk: BY- [?] Verso, right stretcher bar, bottom right, white chalk: 7A Verso, bottom stretcher bar, left, black marker: 15340 Verso, vertical strainer bar, top, blue crayon: 12[crossed out] / 29 [underlined] Verso, vertical strainer bar, upper center, ink on lined sticker: No3694 / Pater Verso, vertical strainer bar, center, blue crayon: 12[crossed out] Verso, vertical strainer bar, center, red ink on sticker with red boarder: N.Y. v[?]91 [ripped] Verso, vertical strainer bar, lower center, black crayon: Bx5 2 Verso, upper horizontal strainer bar, left center, ink on sticker with red boarder: Pater / "Bathers' Verso, upper horizontal strainer bar, left center, white chalk: D / 27A [? Faded] Verso, upper horizontal strainer bar, right center, black marker: 15340 Verso, upper horizontal strainer bar, right, typed label: [ripped] & Meyer / Murray & Young Inc. / 304-305-307 East 61st Street / New York, N. Y. / A[ripped] / Piece [ripped] / Packe [ripped]
- Provenance Comte d'Elva. Ferdinand Bischoffsheim (1837-1909); probably inherited by his granddaughter, Marie-Laure Bischoffsheim (1902-1970), Paris [see note 1]; auctioned at Objets d'Art et d'Ameublement… Dépendant de l’ancienne Collection de M. F. B…. Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May 21, 1926, lot 29 [see note 2]. Dealer Wildenstein and Company, New York, by December 1926 [see note 3]; purchased by Eugenia Woodward Hitt (1905-1990), New York, January 10, 1967; gift to the Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, 1991
1. According to Florence Ingersoll-Smouse. Pater: Biographie et Catalogue Critique. Paris: Les Beaux-Arts, 1921, no. 327: “Collection du comte d'Elva. Ferdinand Bischoffsheim. Collection du comte de Noailles.” Marie-Laure Bischoffsheim married Charles de Noailles, Comte de Noailles (1891-1981) in 1923, which could be why his name appeared in Ingersoll-Smouse’s provenance for 1991.248.
2. Marie-Laure Bischoffsheim likely sold the collection under Marie-Laure’s grandfather’s name.
3. Felix Wildenstein is listed as the owner of 1991.248 in the exhibition catalogue for The Fourth Loan Exhibition Old Masters: French Painting of the Eighteenth Century. Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan, December 2, 1926 - December 20, 1926, no. 44. Felix Wildenstein was president of the New York branch of Wildenstein & Company. Wildenstein & Co. is listed as the lender of 1991.248 to exhibitions in 1935 at the Baltimore Museum of Art, 1946 at the Brooklyn Institute of Art and Sciences, 1951 and 1953 at Wildenstein in London, 1954 at the Isaac Delgado Museum of Art, 1954 at the Carnegie Institute Department of Fine Arts, 1958 at the Munich Residenz, 1959 at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and 1964 at the Nationalmuseum (Stockholm). Wildenstein and Company, New York, is also listed as the owner of 1991.248 in Florence Ingersoll-Smouse. Pater: Biographie et Catalogue Critique. Paris: Les Beaux-Arts, 1928, no. 327.