Inventory

Provenance

Commissioned from the artist by Sultan Abdülaziz (ruled 1861-76), Turkey
Goupil & cie, Paris (acquired directly from the artist, May 16, 1863, no. 833 for 4,000 francs, as Alcibiade)
Khalil Bey (1831-1879), Paris (acquired from the above for 12,500 francs, September 24 1866)
Possibly, W.A.C. Guthirer, Duart Castle, Scotland
Possibly, Francis Ley (1846-1916), Epperstone Manor, Nottinghamshire, England
H. Gordon Ley, Bt., England, before 1920
Sale: Corporation Art Gallery, Derby, England, 1920, lot 25 (incorrectly titled as Pericles and Aspasia)
Agnew & Sons, London
Robert A. Isaacson (1927-1998), New York, from 1965
Sale: Christie’s, New York, May 6, 1999, no. 11
 Private Collection, California

Exhibited

Paris, Salon, 1861, no. 1249
London, French Exhibition (in conjunction with the Universal Exhibition), 1862
Derby, England, Corporation Art Gallery, 1920, no. 25 (incorrectly titled as Pericles and Aspasia)
Poughkeepsie, New York, Vassar College Art Museum, Jean-Léon Gérôme and his Pupils, 1967, no. 3

Literature

Théophile Gautier, Abécédiare du Salon de 1861, Paris, 1861, pp. 180-2
Thomas Eakins to Fanny, Paris, April Fool’s Day, 1869, letter quoted in The Paris Letters of Thomas Eakins, ed. William Innes Homer, Princeton, 2009, p. 245
“Jean- Léon Gérôme,” 'Appletons’ Journal of Literature, Science and Art, Nov. 20, 1869, p. 439
“The Art Gallery: Jean- Léon Gérôme,” The Art Amateur, Sept. 1, 1879, p. 70
Edward Strahan [Earl Shinn], Gérôme, A Collection of the Works of J.-L. Gérôme in One Hundred Photogravures, New York, 1881-83, n.p.
L. Viardot, Masterpieces of French Art, Philadelphia, 1883, vol. I, n.p., illustrated; vol. II, p. 5
Fanny Field Hering, The Life and Works of Jean- Léon Gérôme, New York, 1892, pp. 95-96
Gerald M. Ackerman, “A Gérôme Exhibition at Vassar,” Burlington Magazine, vol. 109, no. 771, June 1967, p. 376
Gerald M. Ackerman, The Life and Work of Jean-Léon Gérôme, Paris, 1986, pp. 54-5, p. 210, no. 131, illustrated p. 57 (color), illustrated p. 211, no. 131 (black and white)
Cheryl Glenn, “Sex, Lies, and Manuscript: Refiguring Aspasia in the History of Rhetoric,” College Composition and Communication, vol. 45, no. 2, May 1994, pp. 180, 194
Gerald M. Ackerman, Jean-Léon Gérôme : monographie révisée, catalogue raisonné mis à jour, Paris, 2000, illustrated Gérôme and Goupil: Art and Enterprise, exh. cat., Paris, 2000, pp. 20, 25, 94, 96, 165
Laurence Des Cars, Dominique de Font-Réelaulx, and Edouard Papet, eds., The Spectacular Art of Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), exh. cat., Milan, 2010, pp. 92, 104, 110, illustrated p. 110, no. 53 (color)
Gabriel P. Weisberg, Breaking the Mold: The Legacy of the Noah L. and Muriel S. Butkin Collection of Nineteenth-Century French Art, exh. cat., Indiana, 2012, pp. 136-7