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Saint John the Baptist Preaching in the Desert
Provenance
Eugène Féral (d. 1900), Paris; sold Hôtel Drouot, Paris, April 22–24, 1901, no. 13, as François Boucher, for Fr 320 [price according to an annotated sale catalogue in the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, and Pannier 1907]. Bourdier [according to a letter from Michel Strauss to John Maxon dated November 26, 1962, in curatorial files]. Alphonse Kann, Paris; sold Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, December 6–8, 1920, no. 5, as François Boucher, to Jules Strauss, for Fr 19,000; Jules Strauss (d. 1943), Paris; sold Galerie Charpentier, Paris, May 27, 1949, no. 14 (ill.), as François Boucher, to his grandson, Michel Strauss, London, for Fr 340,000 [according to an annotated sale catalogue at Galerie Heim, Paris]; sold by Michel Strauss to Mrs. Sterling Morton (d. 1969), Santa Barbara and Chicago, 1963 [according to registrar’s records]; by descent to her daughter, Suzette Morton Davidson, Chicago; on loan to the Art Institute, 1978; given to the Art Institute, 1979.
Exhibition history
Paris, Galerie Cailleux, Esquisses, maquettes, projets et ébauches de l’école française du XVIIIe siècle, peintures et sculptures, 1934, no. 2, as François Boucher. Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Collectors, 1963, p. 4, pl. 46, as François Boucher.
Publications
Louis Soullié and Charles Masson, Catalogue raisonné de l’oeuvre peint et dessiné de François Boucher…, in André Michel, François Boucher (Paris, 1906), p. 41, no. 729. Georges Pannier, “Catalogue des oeuvres peintes de François Boucher qui ont passé en vente publique depuis 1770 jusqu’ en 1906,” in Pierre de Nolhac, François Boucher: Premier Peintre du Roi, 1703–1770 (Paris, 1907), p. 107. Regina Shoolman Slatkin, “François Boucher: St. John the Baptist, A Study in Religious Imagery,” Minneapolis Institute of Arts Bulletin 62 (1975), pp. 20–21, fig. 30. Alexandre Ananoff with Daniel Wildenstein, François Boucher, vol. 2 (Lausanne and Paris, 1976), p. 220, no. 560, fig. 1525. Alexandre Ananoff with Daniel Wildenstein, L’opera completa di Boucher, Classici dell’arte 100 (Milan, 1980), p. 133, no. 591, ill. Art Institute of Chicago Annual Report 1979/80 (Chicago, 1980), p. 31. Metropolitan Museum of Art, François Boucher, 1703–1770, exh. cat. (New York, 1986), p. 293, under no. 75. Susan Wise in Susan Wise and Malcolm Warner, French and British Paintings from 1600 to 1800 in The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 1996), pp. 45–48, ill. André Bancel, Jean-Baptiste Deshays, 1729–1765 (Paris, 2008), p. 132, no. 75, ill.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Jean Baptiste Henri Deshays (French, 1729–1765)
- Date
- c. 1758–64
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 42.2 × 26.5 cm (16 5/8 × 10 7/16 in.); Framed: 59.4 × 44.3 × 7.4 cm (23 3/8 × 17 7/16 × 2 7/8 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- oil on canvas
- Style
- 18th Century
- Place
- France
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Gift of Mrs. Eugene A. Davidson
- Accession no.
- 1979.540
More by Jean Baptiste Henri Deshays in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00001455
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