Flowers and Fruit on a Table

Henri Fantin-Latour (French, 1836–1904)

1865

Country of Origin, for CustomsFrance

Medium/TechniqueOil on canvas

Dimensions60 x 73.3 cm (23 5/8 x 28 7/8 in.)

Credit LineBequest of John T. Spaulding

Accession number48.540

On View

Not on view

ClassificationsPaintings

Collections

Europe

Description

Friend to Manet and the Impressionists, but an artist with his own individual style, Fantin-Latour made a specialty of flower pieces. They found a lucrative market, particularly in England, at a time when still-life painting was attracting renewed interest and respect.

InscriptionsLower right: Fantin - 1865.ProvenanceCh. L. de Hèle, Brussels; June 13, 1911, posthumous Hèle sale, Frederik Muller, Amsterdam, lot 3, sold for 9,680 fl. Julien Tempelaere (b. 1876 - d. 1961), Paris; probably sold by Tempelaere to Alexander Reid (b. 1854 - d. 1928), Glasgow [see note 1]; by 1932, probably sold by Reid to David W. T. Cargill (b. 1872 - d. 1939), Glasgow; about 1939/1940, probably sold to Reid and Lefèvre Gallery, London [see note 2]; by 1940, sold or transferred by Reid and Lefèvre to Bignou Gallery, New York [see note 3]; 1941, sold by Bignou to John Taylor Spaulding (b. 1870 - d. 1948), Boston; 1948, bequest of John Taylor Spaulding to the MFA. (Accession Date: June 3, 1948)

NOTES:
[1] Julien (Jean) Tempelaere, son of the dealer Gustave Tempelaere, was a friend of the Glasgow dealer Alexander Reid. Through Tempelaere Reid developed an interest in, and began to stock, Fantin-Latour's work. See Francis Fowle, "West Scotland Collectors of Nineteenth-Century French Art," in Millet to Matisse: Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century French Painting from Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow, by Vivien Hamilton et al. (New Haven and London, 2002), p. 38.

[2] Cargill lent this painting to the "Fantin-Latour Loan Exhibition" (Museum of French Art, New York, January-February, 1932), cat. no. 25. When Cargill died in 1939 part of his collection was dispersed in London and New York; see Fowle 2002 (as above, n. 1), p. 48. The painting seems likely at that time to have been sold directly to the successor to Alexander Reid's business, Alex Reid and Lefèvre Gallery.

[3] Bignou Gallery and Reid and Lefèvre were closely associated and shared a stock of paintings. The painting was included in the exhibition "French Painters of the Romantic Period" (Bignou Gallery, New York, November 12 - 30, 1940), cat. no. 13.