(London/Austrian, 1740-1812)

Travelers Resting at a Fountain (L'Arret a la fontaine) (L. 88), 1769, signed and dated lower right "P.J. de Loutherbourg 1769", oil on canvas, 15-1/4 x 20-3/8 in.; gilt wood frame 19-1/8 x 24-3/8 x 2 in.

Provenance: Anonymous sale, Paris, Drouot, 28 April 1860, Lot 60 ("Peasants stopping near a fountain. This painting is beautifully executed"); Baron Jean de Bourgoing, Vienna; his sale Bourgoing, Gilhofer & Papschung, Vienna, February 27, 1936, Lot 150 (with its pendant); Sotheby's London, December 8, 2005, Lot 353, reproduced; Hampel Munich, September 19, 2008, no. 242 (with its pendant); Sotheby's London, November, 25, 2015, Lot 183; Private Collection

Note: From the catalogue raisonne by Olivier Lefeuvre, "The painting and its pendant (cat. 89) were apparently not exhibited at the Louvre Salon, neither in 1769 nor in 1771. Their gallant subject matter clearly complements each other; one (cat. 89) probably shows a man of high social status taking a glass of wine offered by a peasant woman, while the other depicts a shepherdess mounted on a donkey to whom a shepherd is offering a flower, in a situation reminiscent of the Shepherdess with a Rose, which had belonged to Randon de Boisset (cat. 40). The Dutch influence is still predominant here, and Loutherbourg has put aside his memories of the south of France for a time."

Literature: Olivier Lefeuvre, Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg (1740-1812), Paris, 2014, p. 220, Cat. 88.