Three Putti in the Clouds
Framed: 19 3/16 × 22 1/8 × 1 1/2 inches (48.74 × 56.21 × 3.81 cm)
A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions, 1977–1987, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1987, no. 102, as Three Putti in Clouds.
Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Kansas City, Missouri, Washington University Gallery of Art, September 22–December 3, 1989, unnumbered, as Three Putti in Clouds.
Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, The Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK, June 23–August 18, 1996; The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, Jacksonville, FL, September 20–November 29, 1996; The Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, NH, December 21, 1996–March 2, 1997, no. 43, as Three Putti in Clouds.
The Human Body, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, November 30, 2010–June 5, 2011, unnumbered, as Three Putti in the Clouds.
With François Renaud, Paris [1];
Jan Baptist de Graaf (1742–1804), Amsterdam, by 1804 [2];
Possibly Jean Léon Decloux (1840–1929), by 1898;
Possibly sold at his sale, Dessins, aquarelles, gouaches et tableaux du 18e siècle... miniatures [215 nos] composant la collection de M. Léon Decloux, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, February 14–15, 1898, lot 17, as Groupe de Trois Amours. Ils voltigen sur des nuages, l’un tient une torche enflammée et une flèche, 1898;
Fine Old Master Drawings, Including . . . François Boucher, Three Putti in Clouds, Sotheby and Company, London, December 10, 1968, lot 75, as Three Putti in Clouds, by Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London, 1968–July 14, 1969 [3];
Purchased from Agnew by an unknown private collector, July 14, 1969–June 17, 1983 [4];
Purchased from an unknown private collector by Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London, June 17–July 6, 1983;
Purchased from Agnew by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1983.
NOTES:
[1] See blind embossed stamp at the lower right: FR (inverted). François Renaud (act. 1776–?) was a French restorer and mounter of works on paper. See Frits Lugt, Les Marques de Collections de Dessins et d'Estampes (Fondation Custodia, 2010), no. L.1042, https://www.marquesdecollections.fr/FtDetail/da51d6c9-f72b-e14c-8bed-80a0148fb679.
[2] See blind embossed stamp at the upper left: G. See Frits Lugt, Les Marques de Collections de Dessins et d'Estampes (Fondation Custodia, 2010), no. 1120, https://www.marquesdecollections.fr/FtDetail/e201ff9c-a1ee-8d4b-b2e1-4df1273450f8.
[3] See email from Marco Keiller, Library and Archive Assistant, National Gallery of Art Research Centre, London, to Glynnis Stevenson, NAMA, March 8, 2022.
[4] Keiller to Stevenson, 2022. Due to data protection regulations, the National Gallery of Art Research Centre was not able to disclose the buyers in 1969 and 1983 but could confirm Thomas Agnew’s ownership dates.
Possibly Catalogue des dessins, aquarelles, gouaches et tableaux du 18e siècle... miniatures [215 nos] composant la collection de M. Léon Decloux (Paris: Hôtel Drouot, February 14–15, 1898), lot 17, as Groupe de Trois Amours.
Possibly Alexandre Ananoff, L’œuvre dessiné de François Boucher (1703–1770), Catalogue Raisonné (Paris: F. de Nobele, 1966), no. 850, p. 1:219, as Groupe de Trois Amours.
Catalogue of Fine Old Master Drawings, Including…François Boucher, Three Putti in Clouds (London: Sotheby, December 10, 1968), 55, (repro.), as Three Putti in Clouds.
Alexandre Ananoff and Daniel Wildenstein, François Boucher: Catalogue des peintures (Lausanne, Switzerland: La Bibliothèque des arts, 1976), no. 518/2, pp. 2:189–90, (repro.).
“Boucher Drawing Is Acquired,” Calendar of Events (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) (Summer 1983): unpaginated, (repro.), as Three Putti in Clouds.
Roger Ward, “A drawing for Boucher’s ‘Jupiter and Callisto’ at Kansas City,” Burlington Magazine 125, no. 969 (December 1983): 753, (repro.), as Three putti in clouds.
J. Patrice Marandel et al., François Boucher (1703–1770), exh. cat. (Paris: Éditions de la Réunion de musées nationaux, 1986), 286–87, (repro.), as Trois amours dans les airs.
Roger Ward, ed., A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions, 1977–1987, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1987), 230–31, (repro.), as Three Putti in Clouds.
Patricia Corbett, “Connoisseur’s World: Power Lines,” Connoisseur 219, no. 934 (November 1989): 44, (repro.), as Three Putti in Clouds.
Roger Ward and Mark S. Weil, Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Kansas City, Missouri, exh. cat. (St. Louis, MO; Washington University Gallery of Art, 1989), 11, 42, (repro.), as Three Putti in Clouds.
Colin B. Bailey, The Loves of the Gods: Mythological Painting from Watteau to David, exh. cat. (Fort Worth, TX: Kimbell Art Museum, 1992), 418, 419n16, (repro.), as Study of Three Putti in the Clouds.
Roger Ward, Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 11, 144-46, (repro.), as Three Putti in Clouds.
