KRESS COLLECTION DIGITAL ARCHIVE

Sébastien Bourdon, 1616-1671 Countess Ebba Sparre

KRESS CATALOGUE NUMBER IDENTIFIER K1439 605

ARTIST NATIONALITY Bourdon, Sébastien, 1616-1671 French

DATE MEDIUM 1652/1653 oil on canvas

TYPE OF OBJECT Painting

DIMENSIONS 106.1 x 90.2 cm (41 3/4 x 35 1/2 in)

LOCATION National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia

PROVENANCE Probably commissioned by Christina, Queen of Sweden [1626-1689], Stockholm, Antwerp, and inventoried 1656 amongst her goods to be sent to Rome; [1] by inheritance to Cardinal Decio Azzolini [1623-1689], Rome; by inheritance to his nephew, Marchese Pompeo Azzolini [d. 1696], Rome; sold 1696 to Principe Livio Odescalchi, Duke Bracciano [1652-1713], Rome; by inheritance to his nephew, Baldassare Odescalchi-Erba [d. 1746]; sold 1721 through Pierre Crozat [1665-1740] to Philippe II, duc d'Orléans [1674- 1723], Paris; by inheritance to his son, Louis, duc d'Orléans [1703-1752], Paris; by inheritance to his son, Louis Philippe, duc d'Orléans [1725-1785], Paris; by inheritance to his son, Louis Philippe Joseph, duc d'Orléans [1747-1793], Paris; sold 1791 with the French and Italian paintings of the Orléans collection, which figure as a group in the next three sales, to Edouard, vicomte Walkuers [or Walquers], Brussels; sold 1792 to his cousin, François Louis Joseph, comte Laborde de Méréville [d. 1801], Paris and ;

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON, DC, GALLERY ARCHIVES Page 1 KRESS COLLECTION DIGITAL ARCHIVE on consignment until 1798 with (Jeremiah Harman, London); sold 1798 through (Michael Bryan, London) to a consortium of Francis Egerton, 3rd duke of Bridgewater [1736-1803], London and Hall, Lancashire, Frederick Howard, 5th earl of Carlisle [1748- 1825], Castle Howard, North Yorkshire, and George Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st duke of Sutherland [1758-1833], London, Trentham Hall, Stafford, and , Highland, Scotland. [2] (Orléans Collection sale [French and Italian paintings], Coxe, Burrell and Foster, London, 14 February 1800, no. 11, as The Portrait of the Queen of Sweden). John Maitland [d. 1831], London, Loughton Hall, Essex, and Woodford Hall, Essex; (his estate sale, Christie & Manson, London, 30 July 1831, no. 14, as Portrait of Christina, Queen of Sweden); Joseph Neeld [d. 1856], House, Wiltshire; by inheritance to his brother, Sir John Neeld, 1st bt. [1805-1891], Grittleton House; by inheritance to his son, Sir Algernon William Neeld, 2nd bt. [1846-1900], Grittleton House; by inheritance to his brother, Sir Audley Dallas Neeld, 3rd bt. [1849-1941], Grittleton House; by inheritance to Joseph Neeld's descendant through an illegitimate daughter, Lionel William [Inigo-Jones] Neeld [d. 1956], Grittleton House; (Neeld sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 13 July 1945, no. 52, as Portrait of Christina of Sweden); purchased by Kaye. [3] (Wildenstein & Co., Paris, New York, and London); sold 1947 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York; gift 1952 to NGA. [1] The painting also appeared in the Queen's 1662 inventory of her belongings in Rome, and in the inventory taken 1689, the year of both her death and that of Cardinal Azzolino, to whom her paintings were bequeathed. On the history of Christina's collection, see Baron Carl Nils Daniel Bildt, "Queen Christina's Pictures," The Nineteenth Century 56 (1904): 99-1003, and Christina, Queen of Sweden: A Personality of European civilization, Exh. cat., Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 1966. [2] Provenance provided by Wildenstein to the Kress Foundation. For details about the sale of the Orléans collection, see William Buchanan, Memoirs of Painting with a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters into England since the French Revolution, 2 vols., London, 1824: 1:1-216; Denys Sutton, "Aspects of British Collecting, Part III. XII: The Orléans Collection," Apollo (May 1984): 357-372; and Jordana Pomeroy, "The Orléans Collection: Its impact on the British art world," Apollo (February 1997): 26-31. Jeremiah Harman was head of a London banking house and had his own collection of paintings that was auctioned after his death in 1844. [3] Neeld's purchase at the Maitland sale is according to an annotated auction catalogue at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, and the painting is recorded in a 1913 manuscript copy of an 1851 manuscript catalogue of the Neeld collection (see letter from Martha Hepworth of the Getty Provenance Index dated 13 March 1986 in NGA curatorial files). In a letter of 20 January 1969 to Colin Eisler (copy in NGA curatorial files), the dealer David M. Koetser writes that among the paintings he sold to the Kress Foundation was "...indirectly...Sebastian Bourdon's 'Queen Christina'." It is possible that "Kaye" was a pseudonym used by Koetser at the 1945 sale, and that he was buying for the Foundation.

ACCESSION NUMBER 1952.5.34

KRESS NUMBER 1439

LEGACY NGA NUMBER 1113

NGA LOAN NUMBER 55

1 ACQUISITION Wildenstein and Company, October 30, 1947

1 DISTRIBUTION Gift to National Gallery of Art, October 15, 1952

EXTERNAL LINKS Related Collection Record https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.41646.html

Related National Gallery of Art Library Image Collections Record https://library.nga.gov/permalink/01NGA_INST/1p5jkvq/alma9999763804896

Related National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalog https://library.nga.gov/permalink/01NGA_INST/1cl1g8d/alma992891233504896

5 ARCHIVAL ITEMS

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON, DC, GALLERY ARCHIVES Page 2 KRESS COLLECTION DIGITAL ARCHIVE

K1439 - Condition and restoration record, circa 1950s-1960s

K1439 - Treatment proposal, 1979

K1439 - Treatment report, 1993

K1439 - Examination summary, 1991

K1439 - Examination summary, 2007

RECORD LINK https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/605

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON, DC, GALLERY ARCHIVES Page 3