The picture is an autograph replica of a portrait signed and dated 1766.

When writing about the 1767 Salon, the critic Denis Diderot (1713–1784), mentioned that one of Drouais's sitters was accompanied by "un chien d'ébèn avec des yeux de jais," a dog of ebony color with eyes of jet. The artist's exhibits that year were a portrait of the comtesse de Brionne (location unknown), number 61, which would have been the most important, and, under number 62, an undesignated number of portraits ("Plusieurs Portraits"). What must be the primary version of "Boy with a Black Spaniel" (private collection) is signed and dated 1766: it could have been exhibited at the Salon in the following year and mentioned by Diderot, but there is not enough information about the other portraits Drouais showed either to prove or disprove this possibility.

The boy in the 1766 picture is described as blond, with black eyes, and wearing a rose-colored coat with large buttons of the same fabric over a blue waistcoat with gold buttons. Here the same boy is dressed in brown, resulting in a more modest effect. While the face and lace are painted with the usual care, Drouais is uninterested in the dog's anatomy.

[2011]

Jules S. Bache, New York (1926–d. 1944; his estate, 1944–49; cats., 1929, unnumbered; 1937, no. 49; 1943, no. 48)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Bache Collection," June 16–September 30, 1943, no. 48.

A Catalogue of Paintings in the Collection of Jules S. Bache. New York, 1929, unpaginated, ill., identifies this picture as Drouais's portrait of the son of President Desvieux, which was no. 82 in the Salon of 1761, from the collection of the Earl of Pembroke, and with Wildenstein.

A Catalogue of Paintings in the Bache Collection. under revision. New York, 1937, unpaginated, no. 49, ill.

A Catalogue of Paintings in the Bache Collection. rev. ed. New York, 1943, unpaginated, no. 48, ill.

Charles Sterling. "XV–XVIII Centuries." The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of French Paintings. 1, Cambridge, Mass., 1955, pp. 145, 148–50, ill., as a replica by Drouais of a portrait he believes Diderot describes in the Salon of 1767 under no. 62, and including, according to Sterling, a boy holding a dog of ebony with eyes of jet; identifies the original as the portrait signed and dated 1766, later in the Pembroke, Meffre, M. D., and Rothschild collections.

Else Marie Bukdahl. "Théorie et pratique dans les Salons de Diderot." Diderot: Critique d'art. 1, Copenhagen, 1980, pp. 145, 274 n. 189, fig. 58, illustrates our picture in lieu of the primary version.

According to information confirmed by Wildenstein & Co. in 2000, the firm bought a version of Boy with a Black Spaniel, oval, signed "Drouais le fils" and dated 1766 (58 x 52 cm), at the Monsieur D[elaroff, St. Petersburg] sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, February 26, 1913. It is recorded as having belonged to the late comte de Pembroke (sale, Paris, June 30, 1862, no. 13) and Meffre père (sale, Paris, March 9–10, 1863, no. 27). Wildenstein sold it later in 1913 to a member of the Rothschild family. See the 1913 sale catalogue and Henri Frantz, "La Curiosité," L'Art décoratif I (1913), pp. 199–200, 202, ill.

In a manuscript catalogue of Jules Bache's collection written after 1943, Louis S. Levy states that Bache bought the painting that is the subject of this entry "from Wildenstein" on May 17, 1926, but Wildenstein & Co. cannot confirm the sale nor find any trace of the work in their records.

The sitter is neither a son of the Président Desvieux, whose portrait was exhibited in the 1761 Salon (location unknown), nor Charles X as a boy, for which see a portrait in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. 4114), as had been variously suggested.