Le Petit Gilles (The Little Confectioner)
Artist
Thomas Couture
(French, 1815-1879)
CultureFrench
Dateca. 1879
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions31 1/2 × 25 1/2 in. (80 × 64.8 cm)
Overall, Frame: 39 1/2 × 33 3/8 × 3 1/4 in. (100.3 × 84.8 × 8.3 cm)
Overall, Frame: 39 1/2 × 33 3/8 × 3 1/4 in. (100.3 × 84.8 × 8.3 cm)
InscribedSigned with the artist's initials, lower right, T.C.
Credit LineGift of the Mowbray Arch Society, 2008
Object number2008.14
Collections
On View
Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 102
Label TextThomas Couture French, 1815–1879 Le Petit Gilles (The Little Confectioner), ca. 1879 Oil on canvas Here Thomas Couture’s servant boy wears the white cap and smock of Pierrot, sometimes known as Gilles, an unlucky clown who is a recurring character in European street theater. He carries a tray bearing three glasses, two containing silver spoons and a sugary red liquid. Street performers in Paris often sent boys dressed in costume to sell sweets to passersby and lure them into the audience: hence the painting’s secondary title, The Little Confectioner. Couture often portrayed contemporary Parisians in the costumes of well-known stage characters to satirize modern French life, as seen in his painting Pierrot the Politican in the adjoining gallery. Gift of the Mowbray Arch Society 2008.14 ProvenanceThe artist; Charles Stewart Smith, 1789, New York; Thence by descent, until 1935; Anderson Galleries, Inc. American Art Association, New York, January 1935, lot 49; Dr. William F. MacFee, 1935, New York; Thence by descent; W.M. Brady & Co., New York, 2008; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia, Gift of the Mowbray Arch Society, 2008. Published ReferencesJ.W. Howe, Jr. _Thomas Couture: His Career and Artistic Development_ (Master of Arts Dissertation). Chicago: University of Chicago, 1951, chapter III, cat. no. 163 A. Boime. _Thomas Couture and the Eclectic Vision_. (New Haven and London, 1980), p. 642, footnote 154
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