A Mother Feeding her Child (The Happy Mother) by Willem van Mieris
Art Institute of ChicagoPublic domain

A Mother Feeding her Child (The Happy Mother)

Willem van Mieris · 1707

Provenance

Ownership history

  1. David Grenier, Middleburg, until 1712; sold at auction, Middleburg, August 18, 1712, no. 73 for 32 florins [price given by Hoet 1752]. Jacques Clemens, canon of St. Bavo’s Cathedral, Ghent (died 1779); sold in his estate sale, Ghent, June 21, 1779, no. 170 for 457 florins to Rijsschoot [according to an annotated copy of the sale catalogue in the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague]. Emanuel-Augustin-Joseph van den Meersche, by 1791; sold in his sale, Salle de la Confrerie de St. George, Ghent, July 12, 1791, lot 103 for £335 to Rijschot [according to an annotated copy of the sale catalogue in Bibliothèque des Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels]. Countess Vilain XIV (died 1853), castle of Wetteren, by 1827 [according to the introduction of the catalogue of the May 2, 1857 sale of the collection of le Comte Philippe Vilain XIV]; at her death to her husband le Comte Philippe Vilain XIV (died 1856); sold in his sale, Pillet, Paris, May 2, 1857, no. 7 for 12,300 francs to the Marquis de Rhodes [price and buyer according to an annotated copy of the sale catalogue in the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague]. Presumably Prince Anatole Demidoff, Villa San Donato, near Florence (died 1870); by descent to his nephew Prince Paul Demidoff (died 1885) and later to Paul Demidoff’s widow Helena Troubetskoi, Pratolino, near Florence [according to an entry in William French’s 1889 travel notebook dated April 19, 1889, the painting was on view with the Demidoff collection in Pratolino, Art Institute archives]; included in the group of 13 paintings from the Demidoff collection sold to trustees of the Art Institute through Durand-Ruel, Paris in 1890; purchase price reimbursed by Edson Keith, 1890.

Recorded by Art Institute of Chicago.

Exhibitions

Exhibition history

  • Art Institute of Chicago, December 1893–January 1894, no. 156.
  • Indianapolis, John Herron Art Museum, Dutch Paintings, Etchings, Drawings, Delftware of the Seventeenth Century, February 27–April 11, 1937, no. 45.

Literature

Published references

  • Johan van Gool, De nieuwe schouburg der Nederlantsche kunstschilders en schilderessen (The Hague, 1750), p. 193–94.
  • Gerard Hoet, Catalogus of naamlyst van schilderyen (The Hague, 1752; reprint Soest, 1976), p. 361, no. 73.
  • “Famous Pictures for Chicago,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 3, 1890 in scrapbooks maintained by Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, Art Institute of Chicago.
  • “Notes on Current Art,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 6, 1890, p. 32.
  • “Chicago an Art Center,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 9, 1890, p. 1.
  • V. V. H., “Inventaires de tableaux dressés par Spruyt,” in Messager des Sciences Historiques, ou Archives des Arts et de la Bibliographie de Belgique (Ghent, 1892), p. 247, no. 64.
  • Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Objects in the Museum (Chicago, 1901), pp. 142–43, no. 8.
  • Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Objects in the Museum (Chicago, 1904), pp.148–49, no. 8.
  • Art Institute of Chicago, Important Facts Regarding the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 1905), pp. 2, ill., 9.
  • Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Sculpture, Paintings and other Objects (Chicago, 1907), p. 159–60.
  • Art Institute of Chicago, Catalogue of Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture and Architecture (Chicago, 1917), p. 112, no. 8.
  • Art Institute of Chicago, Handbook of sculpture, architecture, paintings, and drawings, part 2 (Chicago, 1920), p. 18, no. 8.

Comparables

Related holdings by the same hand

Museum holdings, not sale records. Auction results are only shown when a licensed price source is connected.

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