 On 1 December 1978 the painting was stolen from the museum and returned on 2 February 1979.The painting comes from the bequest of Louis Alexandre Ducastel, a notary at Saint Germain en Laye from 1813, who was also city council member and mayor in August 1835 and (provisionally) in 1839.The collection seems especially to have been formed by his father John Alexander Ducastel, a painter and collector.