The Bathers
Framed: 32 5/8 x 36 1/16 inches (82.87 x 91.6 cm)
- 118
Cents Chefs-d’œuvre des collections françaises et étrangères, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, June 8–July 29, 1892, no. 32, as Le Bain.
Loan Exhibition of Fifty-nine Masterpieces of Ancient and Modern Schools, Benjamin Altman Gallery, New York, March 24–April 4, 1915, no. 39, as Le Bain.
Exposition Rococo: poésie et rêve de la peinture française au XVIIIe siècle, Otani Museum, Nishinomiya, Japan, January 14–February 12, 1978, no. 4, as Les Baigneuses.
Intimate Encounters: Love and Domesticity in Eighteenth-Century France, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 4, 1997–January 4, 1998; The Toledo Museum of Art, OH, February 15– May 10, 1998; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, May 31–August 23, 1998, no. 8, as The Bathers.
Eugène Secrétan (1836–1899), Paris, by March 1889–July 13, 1889 [1];
Purchased along with its pendant at his sale, Seventeen ancient and modern pictures of the highest importance, until recently forming part of the celebrated Secrétan collection; in conjunction with Messrs. Boussod, Valadon, et Cie., London and Paris, and M. C. Sedelmeyer, Paris: which will be sold by auction, by Messrs. Christie, Manson and Woods, at their Great Rooms, 8 King Street, St. James’s Square, On Saturday, July 13, 1889, at one o’clock precisely , Christie, Manson and Woods, London, July 13, 1889, no. 4, erroneously as A Fete Champetre [sic], by Boussod Valadon et Cie., Paris, stock no. 19985 or 19986, as Fête champêtre, July 15, 1889–December 3, 1889 [2];
Purchased from Boussod, Valadon, et Cie., by Lacroix, Paris, December 3, 1889 [3];
Marcel Bernstein (1840–1896), Paris, by June 8, 1892–1896;
Inherited by his wife Ida (née Seligman, 1854–1921), or by descent to his son, Henry (1876–1953) Bernstein, Paris, 1896–1899;
Purchased from Henry or his mother Ida Bernstein by Ernest Gimpel, Paris, January 27, 1899–1901 [4];
Purchased from Gimpel by François “Ernest” Cronier (ca. 1840–1905), Paris, March 22, 1901–before August 27, 1905 [5];
Returned by Cronier to Ernest Gimpel and Wildenstein, as The Bath, before August 27, 1905–March 1906 [6];
Purchased from Ernest Gimpel and Wildenstein by John Woodruff (1850–1920) and Kate (née Seney, 1868–1943) Simpson, New York, March 1906–May 16, 1920 [7];
Purchased from the estate of John Woodruff Simpson by Wildenstein and Co., New York, stock no. 1007, 1921– September 14, 1982 [8];
Purchased from Wildenstein by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City,
MO, 1982.
NOTES:
[1] Secrétan’s copper syndicate collapsed in March 1889. See email from Dr. Diana Kostyrko, Australian National University, to Meghan Gray, NAMA, April 6, 2017, NAMA curatorial files. Secrétan made his first acquisitions around 1876, but only began collecting old master paintings in 1880. Due to the generalized painting titles (like Fête champêtre) used in auction catalogues at the time, it is impossible to identify the museum’s painting prior to 1889. See email from Pamella Guerdat, Ph.D candidate at University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, to Glynnis Stevenson, NAMA, August 11, 2021, NAMA curatorial files.
[2] The paintings were both titled A Fete Champetre in the 1889 Secrétan sales catalogue. See “Goupil et Cie/Boussod, Valadon and Co. Stock Books, Series II. Galerie Boussod, Valadon Stock Books, 1875–1919, Livre no. 12, 1887–1891,” p. 115, stock no. 19985 or 19986, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. The pair was purchased together and it is not clear from the stock books which painting was assigned which stock number. They were reserved for the July 13, 1889, London sale of the collection by Secrétan’s English creditors. See email from Dr. Diana Kostyrko, Australian National University, to Meghan Gray, NAMA, April 6, 2017, NAMA curatorial files.
[3] Several possibilities for “Lacroix” are French painter Tristán Lacroix (1849–1914), active in Argentina from the end of the nineteenth century [See María Isabel Baldasarre, “Buenos Aires: An Art Metropolis in the Late Nineteenth Century,” Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 16, no. 1 (Spring 2017): https://doi.org/10.29411/ncaw.2017.16.1.2]; Gaston Lacroix (1862–1909), an industrialist who lived at 104, avenue des Champs Elysées; or Gaston Lacroix, who earned his law degree in Toulouse in 1895. All three bought pictures from Boussod, Valadon et Cie.
[4] Henry Bernstein’s biographers note that on January 27, 1899, either Henry or his mother Ida sold the Pater pendants to Gimpel. By this time, Henry and Ida were selling of parts of the collection created by Marcel Bernstein. Georges Bernstein Gruber and Gilbert Maurin, Bernstein, le magnifique: cinquante ans de théâtre, de passions et de vie parisienne (Paris: J.C. Lattès, 1988), 18.
[5] See René Gimpel, Diary of an Art Dealer (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966), 305–06. Cronier returned the Pater pendants to Gimpel sometime before his suicide and estate sale in 1905. See email from Dr. Diana Kostyrko, Australian National University, to Meghan Gray, NAMA, April 6, 2017, NAMA curatorial files.
[6] Gimpel went into business with Nathan and Ernest Wildenstein and they opened their New York branch in 1902. See email from Dr. Diana Kostyrko, Australian National University, to Meghan Gray, NAMA, April 6, 2017, NAMA curatorial files.
[7] See email from Joseph Baillio, Senior Vice President, Wildenstein and Company, to Meghan Gray, NAMA, November 9, 2016, NAMA curatorial files.
[8] See email from Joseph Baillio, Senior Vice President, Wildenstein and Company, to Meghan Gray, NAMA, November 9, 2016, NAMA curatorial files. In the Pater catalogue raisonné by Ingersoll-Smouse, the paintings are listed as in the collection Mrs. John Woodruff Simpson (née Katherine “Kate” Seney, 1868–1943), New York. See Florence Ingersoll-Smouse, Pater (Paris: Les beaux-arts, Édition d’études et de documents, 1928), no. 51, pp. 42, 120. Simpson often lent the paintings to exhibitions in New York, including in 1915 at the Benjamin Altman Gallery. Katherine Seney Simpson and her daughter, Jean Walker Simpson (1897–1980), inherited the bulk of the Woodruff estate and likely facilitated the sale of art to Wildenstein.
Possibly Tableaux anciens et modernes. . . .: catalogue de la collection de feu M. le duc de B[ojano] (Paris: Hôtel Drouot, January 19–20, 1882), 24, as Les plaisirs champêtres or Conversation galante.
F.G., “Galerie Sécretan,” Le Gaulois, no. 2500 (July 3, 1889): 2, as Fête champêtre or seconde Fête champêtre.
“The Secretan [sic] Sale,” Times (London), no. 32,741 (July 3, 1889): 7.
“Seventeen Secrétan Pictures,” Times (London), no. 32,746 (July 9, 1889): 11.
Catalogue of seventeen ancient and modern pictures of the highest importance, until recently forming part of the celebrated Secrétan collection; in conjunction with Messrs. Boussod, Valadon, et Cie., London and Paris, and M. C. Sedelmeyer, Paris (London: Christie, Manson and Woods, July 13, 1889), B2, as A Fete Champetre [sic].
Frederick Wedmore, “The London Group of Secretan [sic] Pictures,” Academy, no. 897 (July 13, 1889): 27.
F.G., “La Vente Secrétan a [sic] Londres,” Le Gaulois, no. 2503 (July 14, 1889): 2, as Fête champêtre près d’une pièce d’eau.
L.K., “At the Secretan [sic] Sale: Scenes and Incidents of the Great Occasion. Eminent Persons Who Filled the Room—Intensity of the Interest Shown—Millet and Meissonier,” New York Times 38, no. 11,817 (July 14, 1889): 5.
“Fine Pictures and Big Prices: The Secretan [sic] Pictures,”British Architect 32 (July 19, 1889): 52, as Fêtes Champêtre.
“Sales,” Athanaeum, no. 3221 (July 20, 1889): 104, as Fête Champêtre.
Montezuma, “My Note Book,” Art Amateur 21, no. 4 (September 1889): 66, as Fête Champêtre.
George Lafenestre and Léon Roger-Milès, Cents Chefs-d’Œuvre des Collections Françaises et Étrangères (Paris: Georges Petit, 1892), 19, 65–66, 152, (repro.), as Le Bain.
Exposition de Peinture: Cent Chefs-d’œuvre des Écoles Françaises et Étrangères (Deuxième Exposition), exh. cat. (Paris: George Petit, 1892), 36, as Le Bain.
W. Roberts, Memorials of Christie’s: A Record of Art Sales from 1766 to 1896 (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1897), 2:140.
Georges Lafenestre, Artistes et Amateurs (Paris: Société d’Édition Artistique, 1900), 315, as le Bain.
Loan Exhibition of Fifty-nine Masterpieces of Ancient and Modern Schools, exh. cat. (New York: Benjamin Altman Gallery, 1915), unpaginated, as Le Bain.
“Year’s Best Show of Art for War Aid: Owners of More Than 50 Masterpieces Join Exhibition at Altman Gallery. One Wall Given to France English and Dutch Schools Well Represented – Room Never Before Open to Public,” New York Times 64, no. 20,878 (March 24, 1915): 11.
“A Magnificent Loan Exhibition: Masterpieces of Eighteenth Century French Art on View at the Residence of the Late Benjamin Altman. Dutch, Flemish, English and Italian Art Also Represented—Botticelli’s Portrait of Giuliano de Medici,” New York Times 64, no. 20,882 (March 28, 1915): SM22, as Le Bain.
Guy Pène du Bois, “Mistresses of Famous American Collectors: The Collection of Mrs. John W. Simpson,” Arts and Decoration (March 1917): 234, 236, as Les Baigneuses.
Florence Ingersoll-Smouse, Pater (Paris: Les beaux-arts, Édition d’études et de documents, 1928), no. 318, pp. 62, 121, (repro.), as Baigneuses.
Jean Robiquet, La femme dans la peinture française, XVe–XXe siècle (Paris: Les Éditions Nationales, 1938), (repro.), as Les Baigneuses.
René Gimpel, Diary of an Art Dealer (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966), 301, 305–06, as The Bath.
Didier Romand, “La Cote des peintres: peintures,”Gazette de l’Hôtel Drouot, no. 42 (December 8, 1972): 19, as Baigneuses.
Exposition Rococo: poésie et rêve de la peinture française au XVIIIe siècle, exh. cat. (Nishinomiya, Japan: Otani Museum, 1978), unpaginated, as Les Baigneuses.
“New Acquisitions,” Gallery Events (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) (November 1982): unpaginated, as Les Baigneuses or The Bathing Party.
Donald Hoffmann, “Pater oils grace museum collection,”Kansas City Star 103, no. 43 (November 7, 1982): 9-I, (repro.), as Les Baigneuses.
Bill Marvel, “How good is the Nelson?” STAR Magazine, supplement,Kansas City Star 103, no. 186 (April 24, 1983): S26.
John Russell, “Art View: A Panoramic View of A French Master of Still Lifes,” New York Times 132, no. 45,756 (July 31, 1983): H25.
Donald Hoffmann, “Art journal: More about Oudry,” Kansas City Star 103, no. 292 (August 28, 1983): 8E.
Roger Ward, ed., A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions, 1977–1987, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1987), 122, as Les Baigneuses.
Georges Bernstein Gruber and Gilbert Maurin, Bernstein, le magnifique: cinquante ans de théâtre, de passions et de vie parisienne (Paris: J.C. Lattès, 1988), 18.
Gloria Groom, Edouard Vuillard, Painter-decorator: Patrons and Projects, 1892–1912 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 238n18.
Alice Thorson, “Traveling treasures: Some gallery favorites to go on tour as Nelson gears up for expansion,” Kansas City Star 118, no. 87 (December 13, 1997): E2.
Richard Rand, Intimate Encounters: Love and Domesticity in Eighteenth-Century France, exh. cat. (Hanover, NH: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 1997), 101–03, (repro.), as The Bathers.
Emmanuel Bénézit, Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs de tous les temps et de tous les pays (Paris: Gründ, 2006), 10:988, as Fêtes champêtres.
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 89, (repro.), as Les Baigneuses.
Diana Kostyrko, The Journal of a Transatlantic Art Dealer: René Gimpel 1918–1939 (London: Harvey Miller, 2017), 153–54, as Les Baigneuses.
Christel H. Force, ed., Pioneers of the Global Art Market: Paris-Based Dealer Networks, 1850–1950 (London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2020), 241n6, as Le Bain.
