With Matthiesen Gallery, London, by 1989;
Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 30 January 1997, lot 69;
There acquired by the present collector.

J. P. Marandel, in French Paintings 1700-1840, exhibition catalogue, Matthiesen Gallery, London 1989, pp. 41-42, cat. no. 10, reproduced (erroneously reproduced in reverse; according to a footnote in the catalogue, the painting was not included in the exhibition).

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work is well restored and should be hung in its current state. The lining is good and the texture of the work is very attractive. The painting is clean. The details are still very sharply defined. Under ultraviolet light, one can see that the skin of the female figure in white has received some retouches. Although there are a few restorations within the other figures, they are all in healthy state. There are slightly more numerous retouches in the armor on the ground in the lower left and in the lower left corner. A few other retouches are visible under ultraviolet light, but these are to be expected from a work of this period.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This grand composition by Pierre Subleyras was first attributed to the artist by Pierre Rosenberg, at the time of the 1989 exhibition at the Matthiesen Gallery in London. It likely dates from circa 1735, just after Subleyras left Palazzo Mancini (the seat of the French Academy in Rome) but before his 1739 marriage to Maria Felice Tibaldi, a portrait miniaturist. 

The subject is taken from the story of Achilles, set during the Trojan War.  Knowing that her son would die if he fought in the war, Achilles's mother disguised her son as a woman and sent him to live hidden amongst King Lycomedes's daughters. When war threatened, Ulysses and his Greek comrades went to fetch him.  In order to expose him, they brought the daughters a number of gifts, including some weapons amongst the jewelry and clothing;  Achilles instinctively picked up the weapons rather than the more feminine gifts, exposing his true identity. 

Pierre Subleyras was one of the most important French portraitists and painters of religious compositions in the first half of the 18th century.  After briefly training with his father, in 1717 Subleyras entered the studio of Antoine Rivalz in Toulouse. He moved to Paris in 1726 and almost immediately won the Prix de Rome; he moved to Italy in 1728 and stayed in Rome for the remainder of his life.  Many of his patrons came from the minor French nobility in addition to local Italian and private collectors and religious orders.  His sober and restrained classicism was a harbinger of later Roman painting and the artist filled innumerable commissions for history and religious paintings, as well as portraits and genre paintings.