Louis Jacques Aimé Théodore de Dreux (d. 1719), marquis de Nancré, captain of the Swiss Guards of the duc d’Orléans, to;(1) Philippe de Bourbon (1674–1723), duc d’Orléans, before 1719, by direct descent to; Louis Philippe (1747–1793), later called "Philippe Egalité," duc d’Orléans, Palais-Royal, Paris, by 1727,(2) sold in 1791 to;(3) the vicomte Edouard de Walckiers, Brussels, sold 1792 to his cousin; François Louis Joseph (1761–1801), marquis de Laborde de Méréville, Paris and London, sold to; Jeremias Harman, sold on behalf of the syndicate led by the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, the 5th Earl of Carlisle, and Lord Gower, later Duke of Sutherland (private contract sale, London, Michael Bryan [1757–1821], 26 Dec. 1798, lot 83, as A Concert, sold to);(4) Francis Egerton (1736–1803), 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, Bridgewater House, by inheritance to his nephew; George Granville Levisin-Gower (1758–1833), later 2nd Marquess of Stafford and 1st Duke of Sutherland, Cleveland House, London, by direct descent to; John Sutherland Egerton (1915–2000), 5th Earl of Ellesmere and 6th Duke of Sutherland, Bridgewater House, London (sale, London, Christie’s, 18 Oct. 1946, lot 162, as "Moise le Valentin, The Senses," sold for £[?]420 to);(5) [Leonard Koetser, London, for]; [Wildenstein & Co., New York and Paris, sold 1998 to]; LACMA.
Footnotes
(1) Also known as Forest Nancré. According to Stryienski 1913, p. 13: " M. de Nancré, compagnon d’armes du duc d’Orléans en Italie et en Espagne, nommé capitaine des Suisses au Palais-Royal, veut-il reconnaître les bienfaits dont il est comblé, il cède gracieusement le dessus du panier de sa collection à son protecteur: quatre Albane, trois Annibal Carrache, un Louis Carrache, un P.-F. Mola, un Valentin—il faut noter que c’était là un joli cadeau pour l’époque: au XVIIIe siècle qui avait dit Carrache avait tout dit: beau comme le Carrache était un dicton courant."
(2) Listed in Saint-Gelais’s 1727 Description des tableaux du Palais Royal . . . / Dédiée a Monseigneur le Duc d’Orléans . . . item 484, "f.481–82 La Musique. Peint sur toile, haut de trois pieds cinq pouces & demi, large de quatre pieds six pouces. Fig. de grandeur naturelle. On voit sur le devant un home auprès d’une table qui touche un luth, & une fille vis-à-vis qui joue du violon. Un vieillard apuié sur la même table regarde le joueur de luth, il y a une fille à côteé de lui qui bat du tambour de basque, & tout proche un Soldat qui boit. Le fond du Tableau est brun" (Getty Provenance Index, Archival Inventories Database). Dézallier d’Argenville 1749, p. 60, lists "Une musique, du Valentin" in the Chambre des Poussins of the Palais-Royal, where it hung with, but apparently not next to, Valentin’s The Four Ages of Man. Both paintings were still in the same gallery in 1757, but thirty years later, Thiéry 1787, p. 243, noted that Valentin’s Four Ages of Man still hung in the Chambre des Poussins, but the Musical Party [Une concert] had been moved to the "Cabinet de la Lanterne," where it hung next to "Le portrait de Clément VII[I], par le Titien and Le martyre de S. Pierre par Giorgion."
(3 Regarding the sale and distribution of the Orléans collection, see "Collection du Palais Royal," in Cabinet de l’amateur 1842–46, vol. 3 (1)844), pp. 497–507.
(4) See Buchanan 1824, pp. 16–20. See also Getty Provenance Index, Sales Catalogues Database, "description of Sale Catalogue Br-A5676, 26 Dec. 1798."
(5) It is unclear why the painting was titled The Senses, apparently a reference to Les cinq sens, one of the three paintings by Valentin in the Orléans collection. Historically, in catalogues of the Bridgewater collection, with its one Valentin, the painting was correctly called A Music Party. See Ottley 1818, vol. 1, no. 48.
