The Warburg Ceiling

Artists

Dimensions

1066.8 x 1371.6 cm (420 x 540 in.) entire ceiling

Provenance

Probably commissioned for a house at no. 3 rue Jeannin (previously rue du Faucon), Dijon, France, probably owned by the Desbarres family, around 1540; the house, by descent to Marguerite le Blond, widow of Nicholas Desbarres, 1611; to her daughter Marguerite de Gissey; sold; to Jean-François Joly (d.1767), 1742, by descent; to his nephew and niece Bernard and Marguerite Rosand, 1767, sold; to François Rathelot, 1775, sold; to Charles Enguerrand (d. 1817), 1778, by descent; to his daughter Espérance Tarnier and her husband J.-B. Tarnier, by descent; to their sons Jean-Frédéric and Antoine-Marie-Octave Tarnier, sold; to François Calais (d. 1875), 1855, by descent; to his daughter Stéphanie-Marie-Augustine Chavin, sold; to Philibert Berthaux and François Bottard, 1888; beams removed from the building at no. 3 rue Jeannin, supposedly sold [1]; to [Monsieur Berthaux (Berthaut), Dijon, c. 1922], [2] sold; to George Grey Barnard, New York, 1923; sold to Fogg Art Museum, 1926 Notes [1] The chain of descent is recorded by Auguste Gasser in “Le plafond sculpté de la maison no. 3 rue Jeannin,” in "Académie des sciences, arts et belles-lettres de Dijon, Mémories de la commission des antiquités de la Côte-d’Or," pp. 33-60, March 1923 [2] There is some conflicting documentation surrounding Barnard’s acquisition of the beams. “A Carved Ceiling of the Burgundian School,” The Bulletin of the Fogg Art Museum, November 1934 indicates that the ceiling was purchased about 1919 by Barnard. However, archival research from both the Harvard Art Museums Archives and the files at Musées de Dijon indicates that it was likely Monsieur Berthaux (Berthaut) that sold the beams to George Grey Barnard in 1922.