Nicolas Lancret

Collection of M. Edouard Kann;

With Th. Agnew and Sons, London, in 1921;

Sale (From the Property of C. Morland Agnew, Esq), Christie’s, London, 9 July 1926, lot 133;

Where acquired by Farr (potentially Daniel H. Farr);

Bought in Paris by the dealer Theo Hermsen;

By whom sold during the Occupation to Dr. Herbst;

Stored by Alt Aussee, transferred to the Munich Central Collecting Point, 27 June 1946;

Shipped back to France, 7January 1947;

Sold by the French State (Domaine sale), 21 December 1950;

With Kurt Meissner, Zurich;

By whom sold to De Boer in April 1954;

With Kunsthandel P. de Boer, Amsterdam (sold in 1962 according to their archive);

Anonymous sale, M^e Rheims, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 8-9 June 1959, lot 177; 

Collection Sir Robert Bird;

His sale, Palais Galliera, Paris, 1 April 1965, lot 13;

Sale The Property of the late Sir Robert Bird, K.B.E. (consigned by his son-in-law vicount Alain de Mauduit), Sotheby's, London, 6 July 1966, lot 26;

Anonymous sale, Sotheby's, London, 6 December 1967, lot 104;

Where bought by Sir Robert Abdy;

Private Collection, England;

Anonymous sale, Artcurial, Paris, 18 November 2020, lot 84 (withdrawn from the sale).

G. Wildenstein, Lancret, Paris 1924, p. 120, no. 742, fig. 174.

Nicolas Lancret, a pupil of Pierre Dulin, and later Claude Gillot, was close to Watteau, with whom he perfected his skills, especially by visiting the environs of Paris to draw from nature the motifs he would use in his compositions – a practice in which he persisted throughout his life. Accepted into the Académie in 1719, he mostly painted fêtes galantes and genre scenes. His works have sometimes been confused with those of Watteau. 

Following the decorative traditions of the seventeenth century, this painting is consistent with the decoration of Parisian aristocratic and bourgeois apartments in the first half of the eighteenth century. This taste, introduced by Watteau, was proficiently followed by Lancret, who produced many examples of this type of decoration, notably in association with Jacques de Lajoüe. Particularly talented and admired, he was much in demand. Given its format, this charming painting was probably an overdoor forming part of one of his decorative projects. In his monograph devoted to the artist, Georges Wildenstein indicated that The caged bird was in the collection of the Comte de Chézelles, along with five other paintings belonging to the de Chézelles family, which are now in the Museum of Art in Cleveland (inv. 1948.176). The ensemble undoubtedly belonged to the same decorative scheme, whose traces have now disappeared. Wildenstein also noted another version of this composition, now lost, which is probably not to be confused with a painting of the same subject but without the framing, on sale in London in 1990 (Christie’s, London, 20 July 1990, lot 80).

The subject of this charming painting, the caged bird, notably symbolizes the preservation of virginity and was often painted with a pendant showing a bird set free. It was a recurrent theme in paintings of the period in the ‘fête galante’ style. It was an opportunity for Lancret to create a charming composition, full of elegance and refinement, and to deploy his lively and generous palette, creating a painting that is as decorative as it is alluring.

Mary Taverner Holmes confirmed the authenticity of this painting on the basis of a photograph when it was sold in Paris in November 2020.