April

Barberini family, Rome, ca. 1625-1889 [1];

Purchased from the Barberini family, through the dealer Giuseppe Salvadori, Florence, by Charles M. Ffoulke (1841-1909), Washington, DC, 1889-1909 [2];

Purchased from the Ffoulke estate, through French & Co., New York, by Mary Williamson Harriman (Mrs. E. H. Harriman, 1851-1932), New York, 1909-1932 [3];

By descent to her son, William Averell Harriman (1891-1986), New York, 1932-1943 [4];

His gift, through French & Co., New York, stock no. 1072-b, to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1943.

NOTES:

[1] See, among others, Edith A. Standen, “Drawings for the “Months of Lucas” Tapestry Series,” Master Drawings 9, no. 1 (Spring 1971), 3, 6. Four other tapestries from this set are in American museums: May (Huntington Library, San Marino, CA); September (Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR); October (Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE); December (Denver Art Museum).

[2] Charles M. Ffoulke, ed., The Ffoulke Collection of Tapestries (New York: Privately Printed, 1913), 53. Ffoulke was a wool manufacturer, collector, and tapestry scholar, who purchased the entire 139-piece Barberini tapestry collection in 1889. See also Charissa Bremer-David, “French & Company and American Collections of Tapestries, 1907-1959,” Studies in the Decorative Arts 11, no. 1 (Fall-Winter 2003-2004), 40, 64n.9.

[3] According to Mitchell Samuels, French & Co., in a letter to J. C. Nichols, Nelson-Atkins Trustee, December 17, 1943, Nelson-Atkins curatorial files, French & Co. handled the disposition of Ffoulke’s collection after his death, including the sale of this tapestry to Mary Williamson Harriman in 1909. Mrs. Harriman was a philanthropist and collector, and the widow of railroad magnate Edward Henry Harriman (1848-1909).

[4] William Averell Harriman joined the Union Pacific Railroad Company in 1915, serving as its Chairman of the Board from 1932-1946. Among his many political appointments, Harriman served as U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1943-1946.