Four Figures at a Table

Details

AFTER THE LE NAIN BROTHERS
Le Nain
Four Figures at a Table
oil on canvas
18 ½ x 23 3/8 in. (47 x 59.3 cm.)

Provenance

(Possibly) Charles Sedelmeyer (1837-1925); his sale, Sedelmeyer Gallery, Paris, 16 May 1907 (=1st day), lot 224.
(Possibly) with Leger Gallery, London, by 1931.
Oscar Bondy (1879-1944), Vienna, by 1934, from whom confiscated by the Gestapo in 1939 following the “Anschluss” of March 1938.
Acquired by Hans Posse for the “Sonderauftrag Linz”, July 1940.
Transferred to the Munich Central Collecting Point (MCCP no. 2276/1) and returned to the Republic of Austria, 16 May 1945.
Restituted to his widow, Elizabeth Bondy, 1948.
with Leger Gallery, London.
Jack Linsky (1897-1982) and Belle Linsky (1904-1987), and by inheritance to the following,
Anonymous sale [The Estate of Belle Linsky]; Sotheby's, New York, 3 June 1988, lot 16, as 'Circle of Louis Le Nain', where acquired by the present owner.

Literature

P. Rosenberg, Tout L'Ouvre Peint des Le Nain, Paris, 1993, p. 79, no. 29C, illustrated, as 'a copy'.
H. Wine, The Seventeenth Century French Paintings in the National Gallery, London, 2001, p. 198, under NG 3879, no. 3, as 'A Copy'.
S. Lillie, Was Einmal War, Vienna, 2003, p. 231, 'Oelbild, Bauernfamilie beim Tischgebet'.
B. Schwarz, Hitlers Museum, Die Fotoalben, Gemäldegalerie Linz, Vienna, 2004, pp. 134 and 294, no. VIII/16 b, fig. VIII/16.

Exhibited

Paris, Petit Palais, Les Le Nain, June-October 1934, no. 53, as Louis le Nain, lent from the Bondy Collection.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

This is a copy after a painting in the National Gallery, London (inv. no. NG3879), given to the three Le Nain brothers - Antoine, Louis and Mathieu. The London painting is datable to circa 1643, when the brothers were working in Paris. Although the work was traditionally said to represent the Three Ages of Man, due to the differing ages of the grandmother, the young woman and the children, it is more likely to represent a scene of everyday life in rural France. The existence of a large number of copies of pictures like this suggests that there was a substantial market for them in Paris at a moment when similar Dutch and Flemish genre scenes were also extremely popular.

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