Old Masters Evening Sale - 4th July 2019

Antoine Le Nain (? c. 1600-1648 ) Preparations for the Dance oil on copper 12 x 15.1/8 in. (30.5 x 38.3 cm.)

Provenance: Sir Luke Schaub (1690-1758); his sale (†), Langford, London, 26 April 1758 (=1st day), lot 41, where acquired for 172 gns. by Richard Dalton for the following, Sir James Lowther, 6th Bt., later 1st Earl of Lonsdale (1736-1802), Lowther Castle, Cumberland, where listed by Captain William Baillie shortly after the Earl’s death (‘CATALOGUE OF THE LOWTHER COLLn OF PICTURES’, f. 2, Lonsdale Mss.), and by inheritance to his third cousin, Sir William Lowther, 2nd Bt. and 2nd Viscount Lowther, later 1st Earl of Lonsdale (creation of 1807) (1757-1844), Lowther Castle, where recorded to the right of the West Bookcase in the Earl of Lonsdale’s Study in 1825 (A Catalogue of Pictures at Lowther Castle 1825, Lonsdale Mss.), and subsequently by descent at Lowther Castle, where still in the Study in 1879 (Catalogue of pictures Statuary . Lowther Castle, no. 84, as Children Dancing, Le Nain, Lonsdale Mss.), to the latter’s great-great-great-grandson, James, 7th Earl of Lonsdale (1922-2006), Askham Hall.

Literature: G. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, London, 1853, III, p. 263. A. Black, Black's Picturesque Guide to the English Lakes, Edinburgh, 1857, 8th edition, p. 159. L. E. Dussieux, ed., Les artistes français à l'étranger, Paris, 1876, 3rd edition, p. 324. A. Valabrègue, Les frères Le Nain, Paris, 1904, pp. 91,108, 144 and 170. Valabrègue, Catalogue of a collection of pictures, including examples of the works of the brothers Le Nain, and other works of art, London, 1910, pp. 9 and 27. G. Mourey, 'La colledcion du duc de Sutherland à Stafford house', Arts, January 1913, p. 30. P. Jamot, 'Sur les frères Le Nain, II: Essais de classement de l'œuvre des Le Nain', Gazette des Beaux-Arts, V, no. 5, May 1922, p. 224. J. Thiis, 'De tre brodre Le Nain: Notater og iagttagelser om deres Billeder', Kunstmuseets Aarskrift, 1924, pp. 291-292 and 296. P. Jamot, Les le Nain, Paris, 1929, p. 20. P. Fierens, 'Notes sur les Le Nain', Journal des débats politiques et littéraires, 21 August 1934, p. 3. M. Davies, 'Signed Lenains', The Burlington Magazine, LXVI, no. 387, June 1935, p. 294, note 3. G. Isarlo, 'Les trois Le Nain et leur suite', La Renaissance, XXI, no. 1, March 1938, p. 44, no. 99. T. Borenius, 'A Newly Discovered Le Nain', The Burlington Magazine, LXXX, no. 466, January 1942, pp. 4-5. A. Pomme de Mirimonde, L'iconagraphie musicale sous les rois Bourbons: La musique dans les arts plastiques (XVIIe-XIIIe siècles), Paris, 1975, I, p. 170, note 18. J. Thuillier, Les Frères Le Nain, exhibition catalogue, 1978, p. 37, as 'whereabouts unknown'. P. Rosenberg, Tout l'oeuvre peint des Le Nain, Paris, 1993, pp. 74-75, no. 16A. H. Wine, National Gallery Catalogues: The Seventeenth Century French Paintings, 2001, p. xvii.

Exhibited: Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, 2007-12 (on loan). London, The National Gallery, 2013 (on loan). Fort Worth, Texas, Kimbell Art Museum; San Francisco, Legion of Honor; and Lens, Musée du -Lens, The Brothers Le Nain: Painters of Seventeenth-Century , 22 May 2016-26 June 2017, no. 62.

Value: £4,000,000