The present picture, which has not been seen in public since 1925, enjoyed considerable renown during the nineteenth century, when it graced several of the most famous collections of Europe, fetched exceptional prices at auction and elicited high praise from Buchanan, Smith and Waagen (see Literature above). The collection of Citizen Robit is discussed at length by Buchanan (op. cit.,pp.35-72), who describes it as 'one of the finest which the French capital at that time possessed'. Many of the best pictures were purchased at his sale and brought to England by Bryan, including Karel Dujardin's superb Farm Animals in the Shade of a Tree, now in the National Gallery, which was described by Buchanan as 'one of the most rare and esteemed of all this scarce master's works ... always considered as a chef-d'oeuvre of art'(ibid., p.49), but which Bryan was able to secure for slightly less than the price fetched by the present picture.
The collection of the statesman and diplomat Prince Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand (1754-1838) was formed under the guidance of the brilliant dealer Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Le Brun. Buchanan records that 'it had long been considered one of the most select in France' and he describes in detail the lengths to which he had to go to acquire all forty-six paintings en bloc before the scheduled auction could take place (ibid., pp.305-8). High quality Dutch pictures such as Talleyrand's were very much to the taste of Alexander Baring, who is said to have spent more than any man in England on paintings, and he purchased from Buchanan no less than eleven, including the present picture and Jan Steen's Skittle Players outside an Inn now in the National Gallery.