Q97590525

Another canvas in the Musée de la Vie romantique carrying the 1801 date, this oil on canvas adds to the cluster of early — or early-dated — Scheffer works preserved in his former studio-house. The museum's collection includes works from every phase of the artist's career, from the tentative early pieces through to the devotional canvases of the 1850s that made his name across Protestant Europe. The recurrence of 1801 across multiple entries in the Scheffer holdings at this institution points toward a cataloguing or inventory practice — possibly a founding-date convention for the collection — rather than a literal production date for each canvas. Nonetheless, the works themselves are genuine survivals from the studio environment that Scheffer maintained for five decades in the Rue Chaptal.

As with other early Scheffer attributions, the technical evidence of ground, canvas, and pigment composition is the most reliable means of establishing whether a work genuinely dates to 1801 or to a later decade. The artist's handling evolved substantially between his Dordrecht beginnings and his mature Parisian style, providing clear internal markers for approximate dating.