Provenienz

1Art market Paris • 1831 Jean Martin, Charles Masson, «Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint et dessiné de Jean-Baptiste Greuze», in Camille Mauclair, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Paris 1906, no. 1201.

2Private collection France • until April 1940 AStEGB, Letter from Roger Dequoy, Paris, to Emil Bührle, 18 November 1944, with detailed provenances of three of the pictures acquired from Wildenstein in October 1941, on behalf of the Office suisse de compensation (Schweizerische Verrechnungsstelle), Zurich. Dequoy states that the painting had been in the family of its former owner for many years.

3M. R. Pernet France • 1940/41 Letter as above, n. (2).

4Georges Wildenstein Paris • by 1941 Represented by Roger Duquoy, AStEGB, Receipt from Roger Duquoy, 57, rue La Boétie, Paris, made out to Emil Bührle, Hôtel Ritz, Paris, 1 October 1941, regarding the purchase of five paintings, including Greuze, Laurent Pécheux.

5Emil Bührle Zurich • 1 October 1941 until [d.] 28 November 1956 Acquired from the above for FF 500.000 minus a 10% discount (FF 50.000) = FF 450.000, as part of a group of 5 paintings, for which Emil Bührle paid a total sum of FF 6.000.000, Receipt as above, n. (4). For the price of Greuze, Laurent Pécheux AStEGB, Letter from Emil Bührle to Office suisse de compensation (Schweizerische Verrechnungsstelle), Zurich, 13 September 1944; this letter contains also the information that Bührle purchased the French Francs at the exchange rate of CHF 2.92 = FF 100. Following its acquisition by Bührle and its transport to Berlin, on 28 November 1942 the painting was directed to «Carinhall», the estate of Hermann Göring near Berlin, where it was kept until July 1944 before being released and handed over to a representative of Bührle in Berlin (Nancy H. Yeide, Beyond the Dreams of Avarice, The Hermann Goering Collection, Dallas 2009, no. A1257). Emil Bührle was not aware of the «detour» of his painting which was orchestrated by the art dealers Hans Wendland and Walter Andreas Hofer. He showed photographs of the new acquisitions he had just made in Paris to his fellow collector Oskar Reinhart when Reinhart visited him on 14 November 1941 (Archive Collection Oskar Reinhart «Am Römerholz», Winterthur, Notizbuch no. 51/I, p. 171). Bührle also offered to lend the painting to the exhibition Ausländische Kunst in Zürich at the Kunsthaus Zurich in 1943 (Archive Kunsthaus Zurich, Ausstellungen 1943, Letter from Wilhelm Wartmann [director of the Kunsthaus], Zurich, to Emil Bührle, 23 May 1943, and AStEGB, List of paintings offered for the 1943 exhibition), although it had not yet reached Switzerland (and would not do so in time for the exhibition).

6Given by the heirs of Emil Bührle to the Foundation E.G. Bührle Collection Zurich • 1960 Inv. 135.

AStEGB = Archive of the Foundation E.G. Bührle Collection, Zurich