Pierre Crozat, Paris;
His sale, Paris, May-June 1751, lot 97;
La Live de Pailly, Brigadeer of the Royal Army, Paris, before 1763;
Estate of P.-M.D. [Pierre-Marie Duval], Paris;
His sale, Paris, Galerie Charpentier, December 7, 1951, lot 43;
Anonymous sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, December 6, 1995, lot 22;
With Stair Sainty Matthiesen, New York aܫnd Matthiesen Fine Art, London, until 1988, and from whom purchased by the present owner.&nไbsp; 

Like the work of his father, the beautifully colored and sensuously observed mythologies of Jean-François de Troy found a ready audience amongst the Paris collecting elite.  This Judgment of Paris, in fact, has a distinguished 18^th Century provenance.  It is first recorded in 1751 in the posthumous sale of Pierre Crozat, the banker, collector and patron of the arts, together with a pendant of Danäe, now lost.¹  Both pictures are next recorded before 1763 in prints by Jean Daullé, apparently after they had entered two different collections.  The dedication on the Judgment notes that it was in the possession of M. La Live de Pailly, while its mate the Danäe was with M. La Live de Prunois.  Leribault (see Literature) has suggested that the two pictures were purchased together and split by two member of the La Live family.  In fact, it appears that the La Live de Pailly that owned the present canvas is identifiable with Joseph- Christophe de La Live de Pailly (born 1709), a cousin of the writer Madame d’Epinay, who became brigadier in May 1749.²  His father, Jean-Francois-Christophe La Live would appear to be the member of the La Live family who, on November 27, 1727 paid de Troy for a group of some thirty-five paintings, by their descriptions clearly meant as part of overall decorative schemes.³

The final two digits of the date of the present picture are obscured, but it can be dated with some security to relatively early in the artist’s career; Leribault suggests that it a dating to circa 1714.  It clearly postdates de Troy’s first essay in the subject, a painting in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Agen, which he dates to circa 1712.⁴  Its early date is also supported by the inclusion of Filius by the artist as part of his signature, to differentiate himself from his father.  Another variation on the composition, which would appear to be the same moment as the present canvas, is in the Horovitz collection, Boston.⁵ 

1  See Leribault op. cit. ;  The two paintings are described in the 1751 auction of the Crozat/de Thugny collection: “Le jugement de Paris, & Danaë reçevant Jupiter changé en pluei d’or; ces deux Tableaux qui font pendant, sont peints par M. Jean de Troy hauts de 2 pieds 6 pouces ; larges de 3 pieds”.  Crozat’s collection, which included a stupefying 19,000 or so drawings and about 500 paintings, was one of the most significant of the 18^th Century, and included such contemporary artists a🦄s Watteau.

2  See M. Pinard, Chronologie historique militaire, Paris 1761, vol. VIII, p. 486.

3  A painting by Jean-François de Troy possibly from this 1727 La L🦋ive commission is the F🐼lora and Zephyr sold in these rooms on January 23, 2003, lot 86, for $120,000.

4  See Leribault, op. cit., no. P31.

5  See Leribault, op. cit., no. P46.