A Footman Sleeping

Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): C.BARGVE 71

[Goupil & Cie, Paris, 1871; stock no. 5616; purchased from the artist on July 24, as "Domestique endormi," for Fr 1800; sold on July 28, for Fr 2500, to Stebbins]; James H. Stebbins, Paris (1871; returned on October 10 to Goupil); [Goupil & Cie, Paris, 1871; stock no. 5803, sold on October 19, for Fr 2500, to Phoenix]; Stephen Whitney Phoenix, New York (1871–d. 1881)

New York. Knoedler. "An Exhibition of Paintings and Prints of Every Description, on the Occasion of Knoedler, One Hundred Years, 1846–1946," April 1–27, 1946, no. 5.

Cincinnati. Taft Museum. "Cavaliers and Cardinals: Nineteenth-Century French Anecdotal Paintings," June 25–August 16, 1992, no. 1.

Washington. Corcoran Gallery of Art. "Cavaliers and Cardinals: Nineteenth-Century French Anecdotal Paintings," September 19–November 15, 1992, no. 1.

Elmira, N.Y. Arnot Art Museum. "Cavaliers and Cardinals: Nineteenth-Century French Anecdotal Paintings," November 21, 1992–January 17, 1993, no. 1.

New York. Dahesh Museum of Art. "Charles Bargue: The Art of Drawing," November 25, 2003–February 8, 2004, no. 23.

Arthur Hoeber. The Treasures of The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York. New York, 1899, p. 82, ill. p. 85.

Charles Sterling and Margaretta M. Salinger. French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 2, XIX Century. New York, 1966, pp. 175–76, ill.

Eric M. Zafran. Cavaliers and Cardinals: Nineteenth-Century French Anecdotal Paintings. Exh. cat., Taft Museum. Cincinnati, 1992, p. 32, no. 1, ill.

Richard Thomson. Edgar Degas: Waiting. Malibu, 1995, pp. 87–88, fig. 59 (color), compares this work to Degas's "Waiting" (J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles and Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena), noting the similarity of their perspectival arrangements, sleeping figures, and the implications of life beyond the frame of the work; comments that in both works, the umbrellas inform our reading of the figures, suggesting open-ended narratives.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 436, ill.

Gerald M. Ackerman. Charles Bargue, with the Collaboration of Jean-Léon Gérôme:Drawing Course. Exh. cat., Dahesh Museum of Art, New York. Paris, 2003, pp. 265, 292, no. 23, ill. (color) , calls it Bargue's last painting of 1871; notes that the craquelure evident in this painting does not occur in Bargue's later work.