About This Artwork

Sébastien Bourdon
French, 1616-1671

Christ Receiving the Children, c. 1655

Oil on canvas
39 1/2 x 53 1/4 in. (100.3 x 135.2 cm)
Gift of Mrs. Eugene A. Davidson, 1959.57

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, French Art, 1600–1800, 1938, cat. 3A.

New World’s Fair, Masterpieces of Art: European and American Paintings, 1500–1900, 1940, cat. 63.

New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, Pictures Collected by Yale Alumni, 1956, cat. 7.

Publication History

Anthony Blunt, “À Bristol, une exposition d’art français du XVIIe siècle,” Beaux-Arts 75, 38 (1938), p. 3 (ill.).

“Accessions of American and Canadian Museums,” Art Quarterly 22 (1959), pp. 274, 280 (ill.).

M. Boris Lossky with J.M. Girard, Das 17. Jahrhundert in der französischen Malerei, exh. cat., Bern, Kunstmuseum, 1959, under no. 13.

Art Institute of Chicago, "Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago. A Catalogue of the Picture," Chicago, 1961, p. 30.

Geraldine Elzabeth Fowle, “The Biblical Paintings of Sébastien Bourdon,” Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1970. pp. 113–15, under no. 36, fig. 73.

Pierre Rosenberg, La Peinture française du XVIIe siècle dans les collections américaines, exh. cat., Paris Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, 1982, p. 346, no. 8 (ill.).

Sylvain Laveissière in Le Classicisme français: Masterpiece of Seventeenth-Century Painting, exh. cat., Dublin, The National Gallery of Ireland, 1985, p. 12 under no. 7.

Chistopher Wright, The French Painters of the Seventeenth Century, London, 1985, p. 149

Christopher Wright, The World's Master Paintings from the Early Renassiance to the Present Day: A Comprehensive Listing of Works by 1,300 Painters and a Complete Guide to Their Locations Worldwide, 1991, vol. 1, p. 232, vol. 2, pp.61, 554.

Gilles Chomer with Sylvain Laveissière, Autour de Poussin, exh. cat., Paris, Musée du Louvre, 1994, p. 102, under no. 25.

Jacques Thuillier Sébastien Bourdon 1616-1671: Retrospective, exh. cat. Musée Fabre, Móntpellier, 2000, p. 338, fig. 20.

Ownership History

Probably Chiquet de Champ-Renard, Paris; sold Joullain fils, Paris, March 14 and following, 1768, suppl. 3, to Joullain fils, Paris, for 815 livres [the measurements given, which may refer to the sight size, are equal to 98.7 x 129.8 cm; price and buyer are listed in an annotated sale catalogue in the R.K.D., The Hague]. Probably John Joshua Proby, first earl of Carysfort (died 1828), Elton, Huntingdonshire, and London; sold Christie’s, London, June 14, 1828, no. 38, to Gilmor for 35 gns. 14 s [according to annotated sale catelogue, Christie's London]. Robert Frank, Bristol, by 1938 [ according to Bristol 1938]. Seligmann, New York, 1947 [according to Fowle 1970, p. 113]. Robert D. Brewster, New York [letter of December 11, 1981 from Katherine Moore, Knoedler’s, to Susan Wise in curatorial file]. Stuart Preston, New York, by 1956 [according to New Haven 1956, no. 7]; consigned by Preston to Knoedler, New York, 1958-–59 [according to the letter cited above]; purchased from Knoedler for the Art Institute by Mrs. Eugene A. Davidson (the former Mrs. Suzette Morton Zurcher), 1959; intermittently on loan to Mrs. Davidson, 1959–73.