Provenance

Portrait of a Baby, photograph, Hotel Drouot, 1902

• 1900/1902: acquired by Jules Strauss (1861-1943);
• 1902: sold at auction, Jules Strauss Sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 3 May 1902 (lot 71) as ‘L’Enfant’ for 14,500 francs.
• By 1905: owned by George Washington Vanderbilt (1862-1914), Asheville, N.C.;
• 1914: on his death, passed to a private collection.

Jules Strauss (born in Frankfurt in 1861) was a notable collector of Impressionist paintings. It is not known when or how he acquired this painting, but he certainly did not own it for long.

It is not known if Vanderbilt bought this portrait (whether or not it was a portrait of his daughter) at the 1902 Strauss sale. However, he owned it by 1905, when he lent it to the exhibition of Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 45) as ‘Portrait of a Baby’.

Exhibitions

• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 45) as ‘Portrait of a Baby’.

It was lent to the exhibition by George Washington Vanderbilt (1862-1914).