Beggars at a Doorway

?Louis César de la Baume Le Blanc, duc de La Vallière, Paris (sale, Paillet, Paris, February 21, 1781, no. 16, as by Le Nain, "Le dehors d'une Maison de Charité. A la porte on voit un homme vêtu d'un habit & d'un manteau noir; il semble se disposer à faire l'aumône à une famille de mendians qui sont arrêtés devant lui. A gauche est un vieillard à genoux qui tient les mains jointes & son chapelet. Ce tableau, d'une extrême vérité & d'une parfaite conservation, mérite une distinction particulière dans les ouvrages de ce peintre," for 400 livres to Devouges); ?by descent to Martin comte Cornet de Ways Ruart, Brussels (until d. 1870); [Étienne Le Roy, Brussels, through Léon Gauchez, Paris, until 1870; sold to Blodgett]; William T. Blodgett, Paris and New York 1870–71; sold half share to Johnston); William T. Blodgett, New York, and John Taylor Johnston, New York (1871; sold to The Met)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Taste of the Seventies," April 2–September 10, 1946, no. 31.

New York. Union League Club. "Exhibition from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," November 23, 1969–January 2, 1970, checklist no. 14 (as "Medicants" [sic]).

Paris. Grand Palais. "Les frères Le Nain," October 3, 1978–January 8, 1979, no. 77 (as "La charité").

Charles Blanc. Le trésor de la curiosité. Vol. 2, Paris, 1858, p. 42, lists a painting following this description in the sale of the duc de La Vallière [but see Ref. Isarlo 1938].

Paul Fierens. Les Le Nain. Paris, 1933, p. 61, no. 26, pl. 34, as by Louis Le Nain.

Martin Davies. "Shorter Notices: Signed Lenains." Burlington Magazine 66 (June 1935), p. 294, claims that this picture "if by Lenain, could only be by Mathieu".

George Isarlo. "Les trois Le Nain et leur suite." La Renaissance 21 (March 1938), pp. 34, 50, no. 169, fig. 61, includes it among seventeen pictures he assembles as "Group A," and tentatively ascribes to Mathieu Le Nain during the years 1660–77; identifies this painting as one that appeared in the 1781 La Vallière sale; notes that a copy with some variations, measuring 51.5 x 63 cm, was on the international art market [presumably about 1938] as the work of Sébastien Bourdon.

Harry B. Wehle. "Seventy-Five Years Ago." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 4 (April 1946), p. 201, ill., as by a follower of Louis Le Nain.

The Brothers Le Nain. Exh. cat., Toledo Museum of Art. [Toledo], [1947], unpaginated, ill., as by Louis Le Nain.

Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 59.

Charles Sterling. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of French Paintings. Vol. 1, XV–XVIII Centuries. Cambridge, Mass., 1955, pp. 89–90, ill., describes the artist as "obviously a follower of Louis Le Nain and Sébastien Bourdon" and accepts Isarlo's [Ref. 1938] grouping of works from the same hand.

Jacques Thuillier. Les frères Le Nain. Exh. cat., Grand Palais. Paris, 1978, pp. 328–29, no. 77, ill., adds to the group of stylistically similar paintings identified by Isarlo [Ref. 1938] and suggests the artist may have been a Flemish painter active in Paris; dubs him the "Maître des Béguins" due to the ubiquitous white bonnet or "béguin" worn by his peasant women; wonders if the man preparing to give alms in our picture might be a portrait and identifies the building seen through the archway as apparently a chapel, perhaps of a specific institution, such as a poorhouse.

Anthony Blunt. "The Le Nain Exhibition at the Grand Palais, Paris: 'Le Nain Problems'." Burlington Magazine 120 (December 1978), p. 873, remarks that this picture and cat. no. 73 ("La famille de paysans," private collection, France) stand apart from other works ascribed to the Maître aux Béguins, as they are considerably smaller and seem to be stylistically Dutch; suggests they are the work of "a Dutchman who visited Italy, because the architecture in 77 [this painting] is clearly Italian".

Pierre Rosenberg. "L'exposition Le Nain: Une proposition." Revue de l'art no. 43 (1979), p. 91, suggests an attribution to the painter Montalier [Alexandre(?) Montallier].

Pierre Rosenberg. "France in the Golden Age: A Postscript." Metropolitan Museum Journal 17 (1982), p. 43.

Pierre Rosenberg. France in the Golden Age: Seventeenth-century French Paintings in American Collections. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1982, p. 362, ill. [French ed., La peinture française du XVIIe siècle dans les collections américaines, Paris], as by the Maître aux Béguins.

Gregory Martin. "The Maître aux Béguins: A Proposed Identification." Apollo 133 (February 1991), p. 115, publishes a "Farm Scene" signed AB Willemsens (pl. 1 [sold, Christie's, London, April 19, 1991, no. 90]) and, based on its stylistic closeness to the oeuvre of the Maître aux Béguins, tentatively identifies this master with Willemsens; notes that Abraham Willemsens is recorded as an apprentice in the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in 1627/28, was active in Antwerp until at least the mid 1650s, and died in this city in 1672; claims that Willemsens wrote a letter from Paris, where the Le Nain were active, in about 1645.

Pierre Rosenberg. Tout l'oeuvre peint des Le Nain. Paris, 1993, pp. 100, 115, no. B9, ill., identifies it as the picture in the de La Vallière sale and rejects his earlier association of it with the painter Montallier [see Ref. Rosenberg 1979]; attributes it to the Maître aux Béguins and finds identification of this artist with Willemsens seductive but problematic.

Jean-Pierre Cuzin. "Les Frères Le Nain: Le mystère des portraits." Hommage à Michel Laclotte: Etudes sur la peinture du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance. Milan, 1994, p. 493 n. 27, dates it to the 1650s based on the man's costume.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 365, ill.

Thierry Bajou in The Dictionary of Art. Ed. Jane Turner. Vol. 20, New York, 1996, p. 627, believes the Master of the Béguins was a Flemish painter who took up the style made fashionable by the Le Nain; notes that he has been identified with Abraham Willemsens [see Ref. Martin 1991]; comments on this picture's subject matter, which "perhaps derived from a theatrical performance, since the male figure in this obscure scene has the air of a portrait".

Katharine Baetjer. "Buying Pictures for New York: The Founding Purchase of 1871." Metropolitan Museum Journal 39 (2004), pp. 172, 207, appendix 1A no. 93, ill. p. 207, fig. 17.

Jean-Pierre Cuzin. Figures de la réalité: Caravagesques français, Georges de La Tour, les frères Le Nain . . . [Paris], 2010, p. 317 n. 27, reprints Cuzin 1994.

Gregory Martin published a second article, expanding the oeuvre of Abraham Willemsens, in which this picture is not mentioned: "Abraham Willemsens (again): More News of Attributions in Flemish Painting," Apollo 137 (February 1993).