Paul Guillaume, Paris
Valentine Gallery, New York (acquired by 1941)
Leonard C. Hanna Jr., Cleveland, Ohio (acquired by 1946 and until 1958)
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio (a bequest of the above, 1958-65)
Wildenstein and Co., New York (1965)
The Lefevre Gallery (Alex Reid and Lefevre), London (1965-67)
Takashimaya and Co., Ltd., Tokyo (acquired in 1967)
Marlborough Gallery Inc., New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner in June 1977

New York, Valentine Gallery, Twenty-three Paintings by Soutine, 1939, possibly no. 10
New York, Valentine Gallery, Program, 1941, no. 20
Palm Beach, Society of the Four Arts, Abstract and Expressionist Paintings, 1946, no. 38
New York, Museum of Modern Art and Cleveland, Museum of Art, Soutine, 1950-51 (as dating from circa 1919)
Palm Beach, Society of the Four Arts (and travelling in the United States), Paintings by Chaim Soutine, 1894-1943, 1951-52, no. 3 (as dating from circa 1919)
Cleveland, Museum of Art, In Memoriam Leonard C. Hanna Jr., 1958, no. 36 (as dating from circa 1919)
London, The Lefevre Gallery (Alex Reid and Lefevre), XIX and XX Century French Paintings and Drawings, 1966, no. 14 (as dating from circa 1919)
Cologne, Galerie Gmurzynska, The Impact of Chaim Soutine (1893-1943): de Kooning, Pollock, Dubuffet, Bacon, 2001

Doris Brian, "Soutine Turns to Classicism. His Recent and Earlier Manner Contrasted in a New Show," Art News, New York, March 18, 1939, possibly mentioned p. 7
James Johnson Sweeney, "Exhibitions in New York: Twenty-three Paintings by Soutine", Parnassus, New York, April 1939, possibly mentioned p. 22
James W. Lane, "Program for a Modern Gallery's Next Fifteen Years," Art News, New York, December 15-31, 1941, illustrated p. 20
Maurice Tuchman, Art International, New York, January 20, 1974, illustrated p. 33
Maurice Tuchman, Esti Dunow and Klaus Perls, Chaim Soutine, Catalogue Raisonné, vol. I, Cologne, 1993, no. 109, illustrated p. 488

Les Faisans was painted around 1926, a period of vigorous artistic activity in Soutine's career.  The artist often spent long periods of time without painting, when he was lacking inspiration, and craved for a new stimulus to start working again.  After such a period of meager productivity in the mid-1920s, Soutine moved to a farmhouse near the small town of Le Blanc, situated on the river Creuse in central France, which provided the impetus he needed.  The art dealer Léopold Zborowski rented the farmhouse for his artists, and Soutine spent several summers there with the Zborowskis' assistant Paulette Jourdain and their cook Amélie.  Léopold Zborowski and his wife Anna often came to visit.  "They lived in the two-story farmhouse, whose ground level, as was common, was a barnlike space with a dirt floor. The farmers kept their animals in part of the space, and despite the smell, Soutine painted in another part of the space [see fig. 1].  Paulette would walk to the neighboring farms to select birds for Soutine to paint" (B. Klüver and J. Martin, 'Chaim Soutine: An Illustrated Biography', in An Expressionist in Paris: The Paintings of Chaim Soutine (exhibition catalogue), The Jewish Museum, New York, 1998, p. 104).&𝓰nbsp; On his returns to his Paris studio, Soutine would continue painting still-lifes and farmhouse subjects, which constitute the best part of his artistic output from this period.

Fig. 1, Soutine in the far💎mhouse in Le Blanc, 1926