Portrait of a Man of the Moncheaux Family

Inscription: Dated and inscribed: (left) En Esperat Mocheaulx; (right) ÆTA : SVÆ. 80 / 6 MOIS.Ao. 1605

?comte de Beausire, Paris; ?Jean Crean, Troyes; Michael Friedsam, New York (by 1927–d. 1931)

New York. F. Kleinberger Galleries. "Loan Exhibition of French Primitives and Objects of Art," October 17–November 12, 1927, no. 84 (as "Portrait of the Seigneur de Moncheau," French School of the XVIth century, lent by Colonel M. Friedsam).

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Michael Friedsam Collection," November 15, 1932–April 9, 1933, no catalogue.

Louis Réau in Catalogue of a Loan Exhibition of French Primitives. Exh. cat., New York. New York, 1927, p. 174, no. 84, ill.

Louis Réau in The Michael Friedsam Collection. [completed 1928], p. 170, considers this a 16th-century French work and identifies the sitter as "Seigneur de Moncheau"; questions the authenticity of the inscriptions, observing that in spite of the sitter's sparse hair and grey beard, he does not look like an octogenarian and it is hard to believe the portrait was made at the beginning of the 17th century.

Katharine Grant Sterne. "The French Primitives in the Friedsam Collection." Parnassus 4 (January 1932), p. 6, ill., as "Portrait of the Seigneur de Moucheau," French School of the 16th century.

Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 39.

Charles Sterling. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of French Paintings. Vol. 1, XV–XVIII Centuries. Cambridge, Mass., 1955, pp. 61–62, ill., observes that the style of this painting recalls Flemish work of about 1600, but also points to northern France; adds that "the somewhat archaic composition and the red background correspond with the retarded stylistic develpment in the French provinces under the reign of Henry IV (1589–1610)"; notes that the sitter could not be the famous writer and diplomat François de Monceaux, as he is known to have written several books after 1605, when the subject was already over 80 years old.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 357, ill.