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The Holy Family on the Steps
1648
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
Details
- Title: The Holy Family on the Steps
- Date Created: 1648
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 68.7 x 97.8 cm (27 1/16 x 38 1/2 in.) framed: 89.7 x 118.4 x 6.4 cm (35 5/16 x 46 5/8 x 2 1/2 in.)
- Provenance: Possibly Jacques Amelot du Quillou, marquis de Mauregard [1602-1688, later marquis de Gournay], by c. 1668.[1] possibly Henri de Guénégaud de Fresne, marquis de Plancy et de Guercheville, comte de Montbrison [1609-1676].[2] possibly marquis de Lassay; (his sale, Joullain fils, Paris, 22 May 1775, no. 43).[3] George Granville Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd duke of Sutherland [1786-1861], Stafford House, London;[4] by inheritance to his son, George Granville William Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 3rd duke of Sutherland [1828-1892], Stafford House; Cromartie Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 4th duke of Sutherland [1851-1913], Stafford House; (his estate sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 11 July 1913, no. 34); (Thos. Agnew and Sons, Ltd., London); sold 14 July 1913 to the Dowager Duchess Sutherland [presumably the 4th Duke's widow]; Trustees of the 4th duke of Sutherland; sold 7 January 1948 to (Thos. Agnew and Sons, Ltd., London); sold 5 May 1949 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[5] gift 1952 to NGA. [1] In documents dating before the 1830s, it is difficult to identify with any degree of certainty which version of _The Holy Family on the Steps_ is being described, the painting owned by The Cleveland Museum of Art or the NGA painting. The NGA painting can be identified securely only after it entered the Duke of Sutherland collection in the 1830s. For the most up-to-date study of the provenance based on all available information, see Roger Diederen, "Provenance: "Holy Family on the Steps," _Cleveland Studies in the History of Art_ 4 [Volume accompanying the exhibition _Poussin's 'Holy Family on the Steps'_ at The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999-2000], 1999: 177-184, and note 5 below. Concerning Jacques Amelot's possible ownership of the Washington painting, see Diederen 1999, 178. [2] See Diederen 1999, 178. [3] The NGA painting is identified as the one in this sale on the grounds that the measurements of the described painting match more closely those of the NGA version than those of the version of the painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art; see Diederen 1999, 179. [4] Diederen 1999, 180. Anna Brownell Jameson, _Companion to the Most Celebrated Private Galleries of Art in London: The Collection of the Duke of Sutherland at Stafford House, styled The Sutherland Gallery_, London, 1844: 197, no. 74, described the painting as in the Duke of Sutherland collection; Colin Eisler, _Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian_, Oxford, 1977: 277-278, suggests that the duke acquired the painting between 1833 and 1837; Anthony Blunt, _The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin. A Critical Catalogue_, 2 vols., London, 1966: 39-40, states that it was in the Sutherland collection by 1844 based on Jameson's publication. [5] Marijke Booth and Venetia Harlow, archivists at Christie's and Agnew's, respectively, kindly provided the provenance of the painting from the 1913 sale through the 1949 purchase by the Kress Foundation. The painting has two stock numbers in the Agnew's records, 4329 in 1913 and 9766 in 1948. See e-mails of 18 December 2008 and 9 January 2009, to Anne Halpern, in NGA curatorial files. See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1059.
- Medium: oil on canvas
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