Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux

Sornin (?) Collection, Paris (according to an indistinct inscription on an old paper label on the stretcher)
Obelisk Gallery, London
Shepherd Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above, May 1968

New York, The New York Cultural Center, Collectors Annoymous, June 27-September 3, 1972, no. 3 (as Self Portrait and dated circa 1872)
Musée des Beaux Arts de Valenciennes; Paris, Musée du Luxembourg; Amsterdam, Van Gogh Musuem, Carpeaux peintre, October 8, 1999-August 27, 2000, no. 272 (lent by the present owner)

Lined, work may have been cut and laid down. Under UV: Inpainting along lower edge and lower left corner, lines, dots, and dashes of inpainting fluoresce in man's beard and in the background as well as in concentrated areas in man's proper right eyebrow forehead, and in two spots to left of him.
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Though difficult to read clearly, the label on the work's reverse may refer to the sculptor Edme-Jean-Louis Sornet (1802-1876) who was also associated with Carpeaux's hometown of Valenciennes. While previously identified as a self-portrait, the man portrayed in the present work bears little resemblance to the artist and was catalogued as Homme (avec barbe brune) in the 1999-2000 Carpeaux exhibition.