L'Enfant Blonde (The Blonde Child)

Pierre Decourcelle (1856-1926), Paris, by 1926;

Purchased at his posthumous sale, Tableaux Modernes, Aquarelles, Pastels Dessins . . . Faisant Partie de la Collection Pierre Decourcelle, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 16, 1926, lot 18, by Durand-Ruel, Paris, stock no. 13068, 1926 [1];

Purchased from Durand-Ruel by M. Knoedler & Co., New York, stock no. 16555, June 24, 1926-1927;

Purchased from M. Knoedler & Co., through Effie Seachrest, by Genevieve Davis (1900-1960), Kansas City, MO, 1927-at least 1952 [2];

Mildred Brace (1882-1975), Kansas City, MO, by January 1959-1975 [3];

Her bequest to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Kansas City, MO, 1975.

NOTES:

[1] A Durand-Ruel label affixed to the back of the painting’s frame includes the dealer’s stock number.

[2] M. Knoedler & Co. consigned this painting to Effie Seachrest (1869-1952), a Kansas City dealer and agent who sold art on consignment from her home—known as the Little Gallery in the Woods—on March 17, 1927. See inventory card for Effie Seachrest, M. Knoedler & Co. Records, 2012.M.54, Inventory cards, 1881–1971, box 121, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. Seachrest also taught art connoisseurship classes and encouraged Kansas Citians, particularly women, to collect modern art.

[3] The method of the painting’s transfer from Davis to Brace is unknown, but both women were clients of Seachrest (see note 1). The painting was with Brace by January 1959, when it was lent to the exhibition Contemporary Art in Kansas City Collections at the Nelson-Atkins.