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Springtime

Pierre-Auguste Cot  (French, Bédarieux 1837–1883 Paris)

Date:
1873
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
84 x 50 in. (213.4 x 127 cm)
Classification:
Paintings
Credit Line:
Gift of Steven and Alexandra Cohen, 2012
Accession Number:
2012.575

This artwork is currently on display in Gallery 827

  • Gallery Label

    Cot, who received his academic training at the hands of Bouguereau, Cabanel, and Léon Cogniet, first exhibited at the Salon of 1863. For the next two decades he enjoyed success as a painter of allegorical and historical pictures and as a fashionable portraitist. This painting remains Cot’s most celebrated work. It was exhibited to great acclaim at the Salon of 1873, which also featured Bouguereau’s Nymphs and Satyr (L.2012.29). John Wolfe bought both paintings after the close of the Salon and hung them side-by-side in his stately Manhattan residence.

    A visitor to the Wolfe home described the flirtatious duo in Springtime as "in the most dangerous and inflammable of the teens…The cunning eagerness with which the maid looks right into the boy’s eyes is modern in meaning and antique in dress; hence the acceptability of this Arcadian idyll, peppered with French spice."

  • Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

    Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): P + A + COT 1873

  • Provenance

    John Wolfe, New York (1873–82; bought from the artist during the Salon of 1873; Wolfe sale, Chickering Hall, New York, April 5–6, 1882, no. 50, for $9,700, to Lyall); David C. Lyall, Brooklyn (1882–died 1903; estate sale, American Art Association, New York, February 19, 1903, no. 105, to F. J. Goodwin as agent for Goodnow and Bigelow); Mrs. E. L. Goodnow and Mrs. I. L. Bigelow, Brooklyn, N.Y. (from 1903; on loan to the Brooklyn Museum, 1903–39, when returned to Goodnow family); Goodnow (by 1939); unidentified hotel, Wilkes-Barre, Pa. (until 1980; sold to Michelman); [Joan Michelman, New York, 1980; sold to Ross]; Mr. and Mrs. Frederick C. Ross, New Jersey (1980–99; on loan to MMA, 1996–99; sale, Sotheby's, New York, May 5, 1999, no. 99, bought in); Steven and Alexandra Cohen, Greenwich, Ct. (until 2012; on loan to MMA, 2006–12)

  • See also
    Who
    What
    Where
    When
    In the Museum
    Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
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