* Louis-Nicolas van Blarenberghe Henri-Joseph van Blarenberghe Lille 1716-1794 Lille 1741-1826

Baron Mayer de Rothschild, 1865;
Thence by descent to his daughter Hannah, Countess of Rosebery;
Thence by descent to the Seventh Earl of Rosebery;
Their sale, Mentmore, Sotheby's, May 25,  1977, lot 2609;
British Rail Pension sale, New York, Sotheby's, January 8, 1991;
Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, January 10, 1995, lot 138;
There purchased by the present collector.

Norwich, Castle Museum, The Northern Eye, 1987.

Anthony Blunt, in his essay in the Waddesdon catalogue, points out that as Louis-Nicholas and his son Henri-Joseph worked so closely together it is virtually impossible to distinguish their hands.  Blunt also writes: "In the 1760s the miniatures of the Van Blarenberghes had fallen into two main categories, either rustic scenes or the representation of events or places with specific historical associations.  In the 1770s they continued to produce miniatures of both of these kinds, but they also evolved a new type of theme.  These miniatures represent certain parts of Paris or its environs which had acquired a particular significance in the social life of the time" (Blunt, op. cit., p. 243).

The picture depicts the small garden known as the Rond Point des Champs Elysées, located at the mid point of the avenue. It was created in 1706, about seventy years before the drawing was made, when the Champs Elysées reached its total length and became the place to go on a walk for fashionable Parisians.

This picture belongs to the aforementioned category of representations of "places of particular significance in the social life of the time," but it also serves us, more than two hundred years later, as a record of what the "plus belle avenue du monde" looked like when it was created.