Drummer Boy

1857

Thomas Couture French, 1815-1879

On View

Era of Revolution, Level 3, South Wing

Image Only Image + Details All Images High Resolution TIFF Metadata

About the Artwork

Please note: This section is empty
Markings

Please note: This section is empty

This section contains information about signatures, inscriptions and/or markings an object may have.
Provenance

Please note: This section is empty

Provenance is a record of an object's ownership. We are continually researching and updating this information to show a more accurate record and to ensure that this object was ethically and legally obtained.

For more information on provenance and its important function in the museum, please visit:
Provenance page
Exhibition History

Please note: This section is empty

The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.

We welcome your feedback for correction and/or improvement.
Suggest Feedback
Published References

Please note: This section is empty

We regularly update our object record as new research and findings emerge, and we welcome your feedback for correction and/or improvement.
Suggest Feedback
Catalogue Raisonné

Please note: This section is empty

A catalogue raisonné is an annotated listing of artworks created by an artist across different media.
Credit Line for Reproduction

Please note: This section is empty

The credit line includes information about the object, such as the artist, title, date, and medium. Also listed is its ownership, the manner in which it was acquired, and its accession number. This information must be cited alongside the object whenever it is shown or reproduced.
Audio Transcript

Please note: This section is empty

About the Artwork

This impressively scaled picture of a young drummer boy was signed and dated by French painter Thomas Couture in 1857. The subject of children entertaining themselves with toys — especially playing drums — appears regularly in seventeenth-century Dutch painting. However, this image would have had particular resonance with French viewers in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1856, one year before Couture made this painting, the Crimean War, a conflict fought between Greece and Russian Empire on one side, and the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom, and Sardinia, on the other, had just reached its conclusion. Although shoeless and poorly clothed, the boy prepares to beat time for soldiers on their way to war. This patriotic act conveys a sense of youthful idealism and untarnished faith in the homeland. An earlier, smaller version of this composition is in the Wallace Collection, London.

Title Drummer Boy

Artwork Date 1857

Artist Thomas Couture

Life Dates 1815-1879

Nationality Please note: Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events. Some definitions include: Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation. French

Culture Please note: Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group. ----------

Medium Oil on canvas

Dimensions Unframed: 57 3/4 × 45 inches (146.7 × 114.3 cm) Framed: 69 3/4 × 56 1/4 × 4 1/2 inches (177.2 × 142.9 × 11.4 cm)

Classification Paintings

Department European Painting

Credit Founders Society Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund

Accession Number This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection. Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings. For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups. 76.23

Markings

Signed Signed and dated, center right: T. C. | 1857

Provenance

1857, J.V. (Paris, France);
April 24, 1857, sold by (Hôtel Drouot, Paris, France) auction M.V.J. [van Isacker or Isaac] lot 5 [as L'enfant au tambour; for 5825 francs];
1880, private collection (Paris, France);
1880s, private collection (posibly USA);
by 1967, until 1976, (Ira Spanierman, Inc., New York, New York, USA);
1976-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

For more information on provenance, please visit:

Provenance page

Exhibition History

Please note: This section is empty

The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.

We welcome your feedback for correction and/or improvement.

Suggest Feedback

Published References

Lurine, L. Catalogue des tableaux modernes composant le cabinet de M.J.V. Paris, 1857, pp. 12-13.

Ballu, Roger. Catalogue des oeuvres de Thomas Couture exposées au Palais de l'Industrie. Paris, 1880, p. 11, no. 55 [as Jeune Tambour, vue de profil; cited as a study for Volunteers].

"Advertisement for John Nicholson Gallery." Connoisseur Magazine (February 1957).

Grigaut, P.L. "A Thomas Couture Portrait." University of Michigan Museum of Art Bulletin 2 (1966-1967): p. 24.

Van Nimmen, J. Thomas Couture: Paintings and Drawings in American Collections. Exh. cat., University of Maryland Art Gallery. College Park, 1970, p. 57, cat. 23 (ill.) [lent by Ira Spanierman].

Boime, A. "A la Mode and Haute Couture." Burlington Magazine 112, no. 810 (1976): pp. 645-651; p. 646 (fig. 133).

Bulletin of the DIA 55, no. 1: Annual Report (1976): pp. 12, 14 (fig. 9).

Boime, A. "Thomas Couture's Drummer Boy Beating a Path to Glory." Bulletin of the DIA 56 (1978): pp. 109-131 (fig. 1).

The Figure in 19th Century French Painting. Exh. cat., Flint Institute of Arts, et al. Flint, 1978, pp. 40-41, cat. 13 (ill.).

Kindly share your feedback or any additional information, as this record is still a work in progress and may need further refinement.

Suggest Feedback