This maid pours blood from a flayed ox’s head as she prepares to make a delicacy known as headcheese. Such paintings of everyday life were popular in late 19th-century France; as the nation experienced rapid industrialization and urbanization, audiences appreciated imagery that romanticized traditional rural life, with its perceived simplicity and virtuousness. François Bonvin regularly executed genre scenes reminiscent of works by 18th-century French artist Jean Siméon Chardin, who also celebrated the quiet dignity of domestic labor.
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Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1925), p. 161, no. 2099.
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), p. 28.
Gabriel P. Weisberg, Bonvin (Paris: Édition Geoffroy-Dechaume, 1979), p. 206, cat. 98 (ill.).
James W. Yood, Feasting: A Celebration of Food in Art: Paintings from the Art Institute of Chicago (New York: Universe, 1992), no. 15, ill.
Chicago, Carson Pirie Scott and Co., April 14–30, 1952, no cat.
New York, Wheelock Whitney & Company, François Bonvin 1817-1887: An Exhibition of Paintings, April 26–May 24, 1984, cat. 17.
M. A. Bellino; sold Galerie George Petit, Paris, May 20, 1892, lot 2, as La Ménagère, for 2,700 francs [price according to an annotated copy of the sale catalogue in the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague]. Durand-Ruel, New York, no. 2257, 1894 [New York gallery and number according to a label on the back of the frame; year according to a notation in the Registrar’s records] [1]. Martin A. Ryerson, by 1916 [according to a list dated February 27, 1922 in the Archives, Art Institute] [2]; intermittently on loan to the Art Institute from 1925 [see Art Institute of Chicago 1925]; bequeathed to the Art Institute, 1933.
[1] According to Gabriel P. Weisberg, Bonvin (Paris: Geoffrey-Dechaume, 1979), p. 206, no. 98, the painting was owned by an A. Gautier and was sold in his sale at Hôtel Drouot, Paris, on May 26, 1894. However, only one painting by Bonvin appears in the sale catalogue, and it is titled “La rue des Cochers à Saint-German.”
Weisberg also states that the painting was owned by an A. Robaut and was included in his sale at Hôtel Drouot in Paris on December 18, 1907. However, the catalogue contains only one painting by Bonvin, titled “La Ménagère”, and states that it is “signé à gauche et daté: 1851”. The Art Institute of Chicago painting, however, is signed “F. Bonvin” in the upper right corner and is not dated.
[2] According Gabriel P. Weisberg, Bonvin (Paris: Geoffrey-Dechaume, 1979), p. 206, no. 98, the painting was sold from Tempelaere on October 11, 1923 to Brame, and then sold again by Tempelaere on April 18 1924. This is based on the Galerie Brame et Lorenceau entrybook and stockbooks, 1887–1935, no. 3419, held at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. However, according to a document dated February 17, 1922 in the Ryerson Papers, Art Institute Archives, Martin A. Ryerson acquired the painting by 1916, contradicting Weisberg’s statement that the painting in the Galerie Brame et Lorenceau entry book and stockbooks is the same as the present painting.
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