ID number: BIRBI-62.10 Institution: The Barber Institute of Fine Arts Artist / Maker: Aubry, Étienne (1745-1781) Title / Object name: Paternal Love Object type: Painting
Place made: Paris Culture: French Date made: exhibited 1775 Materials: Oil on canvas Measurements: 78.7 x 101.6 cm (unframed) 100.5 x 122.5 x 9 cm (framed) Provenance: Comte d'Angiviller, 1775; perhaps Bailie McLellan, Glasgow; Alexander Cunninghame of Craigends, Renfrewshire; Helen Laura Pearson of Craigends; Christie's Auction House, London, 24 November 1961 (lot 17); Agnews Auction House, London; purchased by the Barber Institute, December 1962 for £5,300.
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Three generations of a family gather around a humble hearth, forming an image of domestic happiness in a modest setting. When Aubry exhibited the work in 1775 it was praised for its naturalism - the depiction of a range of objects with great truth - but also for its positive influence as a ‘moral genre’. A domestic scene of a loving husband who provides for his wife and three strapping sons and supports his widowed father, it was argued, offers a striking lesson for the dissolute upper classes.
Inscriptions / Translations: Engraved: J.-C. Le Vasseur (died 1816)
Notes: Exhibited: Salon, Paris, France, 1775 (no.175); Summer Exhibition of Old Masters, Agnew's, London, UK, 1962 (no. 4); 'France in the Eighteenth Century', Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK, 06 January 1968 - 03 March 1968 (no.4); 'Runge in his Time', Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany, 1977; 'The Age of Watteau, Chardin and Fragonard, Masterpieces of French Genre Painting', National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA, 12 October 2003 - 11 January 2004 (no. 99); 'The Age of Watteau, Chardin and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting', Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany, 08 February 2004 - 09 May 2004
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