Three Stories About the Painting Shepherd Boy with Recorder
Shepherd Boy with Recorder is one of seven paintings the Carnegie Museum of Art acquired that were once part of the important Northbrook Collection. The following stories trace part of this painting’s journey from artist’s studio to the walls of CMOA.
A Moment in History: London, 1837
- Current Owner
- Sir Thomas Baring
- Current Location
- London, England
- Miles Traveled
- 817 miles
- Number of Owners
- Three
This unusual painting was listed as a work of the Spanish master Murillo when Sir Thomas Baring lent it to the British Institution’s 1837 exhibition. Indeed, during the many years it spent in the Baring and Northbrook collections, the painting maintained the same attribution. It was still listed as by Murillo in 1896, when the 1st Earl of Northbrook compiled a list of art works designated as “heirlooms.” Though the painting has similarities to Murillo’s paintings of urchins (mischievous children, poorly or raggedly dressed) the attribution is no longer accepted. An example of genre painting, meaning a work depicting a scene of everyday life, the painting is more likely a work of the Northern Italian School, which also produced such works as early as the last part of the 16th century.
A Moment in History: London, 1873
- Current Owner
- Thomas George Baring
- Current Location
- London, England
- Miles Traveled
- 817 miles
- Number of Owners
- Six
Nineteenth century sources record that Shepherd Boy with Recorder was in the collection of the well-known French dealer and painter Le Brun before Sir Thomas Baring acquired it sometime before 1837. Though Sir Thomas sold it in 1843, his son Thomas Baring, M. P. purchased it for his collection just a few years later. Upon his death in 1873, he bequeathed it, along with the rest of his collection, to his nephew, the future 1st Earl of Northbrook. The painting remained in the Northbrook Collection until the early part of the 20th century.
A Moment in History: Pittsburgh, 1920
- Current Owner
- Mrs. J. Willis Dalzell
- Current Location
- Pittsburgh, USA
- Miles Traveled
- 4649 miles
- Number of Owners
- Nine
Pittsburgh collector Mrs. J. Willis Dalzell (Mary Beer Dalzell) purchased Shepherd Boy with Recorder for $12,000 in December 1920 from one of her favorite dealers, John Levy Galleries of New York City, as a work by Murillo. Mrs. Dalzell assembled a collection of more than thirty old master paintings, most of them British portraits, which she exhibited in her residence on Ridge Avenue in Pittsburgh’s North Side. Eventually, between 1925 and 1929, she donated or bequeathed her collection to CMOA in memory of her husband, a prominent Pittsburgh industrialist. It served as the nucleus of the old master collection at the museum.
Before the present installation, this painting was last seen in public in 1954 as part of Pictures of Everyday Life–Exhibition of Genre Painting in Europe, 1500–1900.
Digital Wall Labels
Select another painting for more details and to see the animated timeline:
- Painting Pieter Cornelisz. van der Morsch, by Frans Hals
- Vision of Saint Ildephonsus, by Andrien Ysenbrandt
- Hero, Ursula, and Beatrice in Leonato’s Garden, by Reverend Matthew William Peters
- Shepherd Boy with Recorder, by Unknown Northern Italian
- Landscape with a Natural Arch, by Gaspard Dughet
- Portrait of a Young Man, by Deminico Puligo
- Ann Franks Day (Lady Ann Fenoulhet), by Sir Joshua Reynolds
