Provenance: Marquise de Caulaincourt, by 1877; by inheritance to his sister, comtesse de Andigné, by 1911.[1] art market, Paris; André Fabius, Paris, by 1936;[2] purchased 1974 by NGA.
[1] On the back of the stretcher is the stencil of Etienne-François Haro (1827-1897) and his son Henri (1855-1911), important Parisian restorers and vendors of art supplies, as well as artists themselves. An entry in the Haro account book for 9 October 1877 provides the early provenance, information that was first published by Pierre Rosenberg and Jacques Thuillier, "George de La Tour," _Revue du Louvre et des Musées de France_ 22, no. 2 (1972): 161, followed, with slightly differing details, by Pierre Rosenberg and François Macé de l'Épinay, _Georges de La Tour: vie et oeuvre_, Fribourg, 1973: 140, and Benedict Nicolson and Christopher Wright, _Georges de La Tour_, London, 1974: 175.
[2] The three references to the painting that discuss its provenance (see note 1) provide differing accounts of when and where Fabius acquired the painting: Rosenberg and Thuillier 1972 say 1936; Rosenberg and Macé de l'Épinay 1973 say a public sale in 1936; Nicolson and Wright 1974 say the Paris art market before 1936.