Recorded as from New York. Descended in the family of the sitter to Walter Gay [1856-1937];[1] estate of Walter Gay. Robert Lebel [1901-1986], New York; consigned March 1948 to (M. Knoedler and Co., New York); sold 1948 to Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch; gift 1959 to NGA. [1] According to old M. Knoedler and Co. records, Jonathan Bentham was an ancestor of the American artist Walter Gay, who was born in Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1856. Gay is said to have inherited the painting from his family and taken it with him to Paris, where he spent most of his life. No genealogical records for the Bentham family or connection between it and the Gay family have been located. The late Gary Reynolds, former curator of painting, The Newark Museum, observed that "it is a very curious painting to have come out of Walter Gay's estate. It certainly doesn't show up in the myriad paintings of his apartment and château, or in the published lists of his collection" (letter of 28 March 1990, in NGA curatorial files). An inquiry to Knoedler's revealed that the painting came to them from an individual whose connection to the Gay estate, if any, is unknown (Melissa De Medeiros, librarian, M. Knoedler and Co., letter of 24 April 1990, in NGA curatorial files).