Italian Landscape with Peasants and Donkeys

Willem de Heusch (Dutch, 1638–1692)

Medium/TechniqueOil on canvas

Dimensions93.6 x 111.1 cm (36 7/8 x 43 3/4 in.)

Credit LineGift of Arthur Brewster Emmons

Accession number17.1420

On View

Not on view

ClassificationsPaintings

Collections

Europe

InscriptionsLower right: W D H (joined); and falsely, JBoth fProvenance18th century, probably acquired in France by Alexander Besborodko (b. 1747 - d. 1799) [see note 1]; by descent to Grigorii Aleksandrovich Koucheleff Bezborodko (b. 1832 - d. 1870), St. Petersburg; June 5, 1869, Koucheleff Besborodko sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, lot 5 [see note 2]. Eleanor Lucy de Falbe (d. 1899), London and Luton Hoo Park, England; May 19, 1900, posthumous de Falbe sale, Christie's, London, lot 92, to Samuel Theobald Smith (d. 1904), London, for £52.10; June 9, 1904, Smith sale, Robinson and Fisher, London, lot 77; from the executors of Smith to Ehrich Galleries, New York [see note 3]; March 24, 1905, Ehrich sale, Fifth Avenue Art Galleries, New York, lot 45, to F. A. Chapman for $1,550. By 1912, Arthur Brewster Emmons (b. 1850 - d. 1922), Newport, RI and New York; 1917, gift of Arthur Brewster Emmons to the MFA. (Accession Date: April 5, 1917)

NOTES:
[1] Although the painting can be securely documented only as early as 1869, the Koucheleff collection was formed in large part by Alexander Besborodko, Grand Chancellor of Russia under Catherine the Great. On the formation of his collection, see Ernest Frydeau, "Vente Koucheleff-Besborodko," Revue Internationale de l'art et de la Curiosité, 1869, pp. 369-370, and R. P. Gray, "The Golitsyn and Kushelev-Bezborodko Collections and their Role in the Evolution of Public Art Galleries in Russia," Oxford Slavonic Papers, n.s., vol. 31 (1998): pp. 57-58.

[2] The painting is falsely signed "JBoth f," and was attributed to Jan Both in the 1869 Koucheleff catalogue and the 1904 Smith catalogue. In the De Falbe catalogue of 1900 and the Ehrich catalogue of 1905, the painting was attributed to Jan and Andries Both.

[3] It is unknown if the painting sold at the 1904 auction. According to the 1905 Ehrich sale catalogue, it came "from the executors of S. T. Smith, London."