ATTRIBUTED TO JEAN-BAPTISTE CHARPENTIER | A PAIR OF COUNTRY MARKET SCENES: THE FIRST, AN AMOROUS COUPLE DRINKING BESIDE A TAVERN; THE SECOND, WOMEN FIGHTING OVER AN OVERTURNED BASKET OF EGGS

Howard B. Keck, La Lanterne, Bel Air, California;

By whom sold, New York, Sotheby's, 17 January 1992, lot 56 (as Etienne Jeurat and incorrectly described as oil on canvas);

There acquired for $22,000. 

Jean-Baptiste Charpentier, often compared to his more famous contemporary Jean-Baptiste Greuze, is best known for his lively genre scenes such as the present pair of paintings. Though his handling is much in the style of 18^th century French painters, he was part of the fashionable 'goût hollandaise,' showing the influence of 17^th century Dutch masters like Gerard Dou, Godfried Schalcken and Frans van Mieris the Elder. Charpentier widely exhibited these animated genre scenes during his lifetime, showing paintings at the Académie de Saint-Luc, the Salon de la Correspondance, and the official Salon du Louvre after it was opened to all artists following the Revolution.