Provenance
Léopold Goldschmidt [1830-1904], Paris; probably by inheritance to his son-in-law, comte Ange-André Pastré [1856-1926], Paris. (Jonas, Paris); purchased 1937 by (Wildenstein & Co., Paris, New York, and London);[1] sold December 1944 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[2] gift 1946 to NGA.
[1] The first two names in the provenance were given as former owners of the painting in Georges Wildenstein, _Chardin_, Zurich, 1963: 182, no. 212. Pastré married Goldschmidt's daughter (one of his six children), Clara Julie Eugénie Goldschmidt (1866-1930). The Wildenstein information sheet given to the Kress Foundation (copy in NGA curatorial files) only lists Goldschmidt. During the preparation of the NGA systematic catalogue of French paintings of the 15th through the 18th century, Joseph Baillio of Wildenstein & Co. kindly provided the source and date of the company's acquisition of the painting.
[2] The memorandum of agreement between Wildenstein & Co. and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation for the sale of ten paintings, including _Portrait of a Woman_ by Jean Baptiste Chardin, is dated 28 December 1944 (copy in NGA curatorial files). See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1729.
Accession Number
1946.7.10
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 80.5 x 64.5 cm (31 11/16 x 25 3/8 in.) | framed: 106.7 x 89.5 x 10.2 cm (42 x 35 1/4 x 4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Samuel H. Kress Collection
Tags
Painting Baroque (1600–1750) Oil Painting Canvas French
Background & Context
Background Story
Old Woman with a Muff is an anonymous French painting from the second half of the 18th century, depicting an elderly woman holding a fur muff—the fashion accessory that was both a practical hand-warmer and a status symbol in 18th-century France. The painting's anonymous attribution does not diminish its interest as a document of 18th-century French portraiture and fashion: the woman's age, her clothing, and her muff are all specific indications of social status and personal identity that the painting preserves even without a sitter's name or an artist's signature.
Cultural Impact
Anonymous portrait paintings like Old Woman with a Muff are important documents in the history of 18th-century French fashion because they preserve the details of everyday dress that more formal portraits often idealize or simplify. The muff, the cap, and the clothing are all specific indications of the sitter's social status and the fashions of the period, making the painting a valuable source for historians of dress and material culture.
Why It Matters
Old Woman with a Muff is 18th-century French portrait practice preserved without a name: an elderly woman and her muff documented with the specific attention to fashion and status that characterizes French portraiture, but without the artist's signature or the sitter's name that would connect them to the historical record. The muff is both a hand-warmer and a status symbol—the painting's most eloquent detail.
