The painting is one of a series of four over-doors depicting the times of the day. The others are The Three Graces (Dawn), Cupid Setting the Universe Ablaze (Dusk) and Night Spreads her Veils (Night).
In 1770 Madame du Barry, maîtresse-en-titre (chief mistress) to Louis XV of France, purchased the series to decorate her château at Louveciennes. She paid 1,200 livres for the pictures, and another 420 livres to have three of them enlarged, relined and retouched, presumably to fit in with a pre-existing decorative setting. The addition of a strip of canvas is visible across the top edge of this painting.
March 2016
Exposition de l'art francais au XVIIIe siècle, Palais de Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, 1935
Auslandische Kunst in Zurich, Kunsthaus, Zurich, 1943
De Watteau á Cezanne, Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva, 1951
Fragonard, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bern, 1954
The Nude in Painting, Wildenstein, New York, 1956
From Titian to Delacroix: Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Ireland, Yokohama Sogo Museum of Art, Yokohama, 25 August - 17 October 1993; Chiba Sogo Museum of Art, Chiba, 10 November - 20 December 1993; Prefectural Museum of Art, Yamaguchi, 5 January - 20 February 1994; Kobe City Museum, Kobe, 25 February - 10 April 1994; Isetan Museum of Art, Tokyo, 14 April - 24 May 1994
European Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Ireland, National Gallery, Canberra, 25 June 1994 - 3 October 1994; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Adelaide, 21 October 1994 - 15 January 1995
Von Poussin bis Monet. Die Farben Frankreichs, The Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, Remagen, 22 March - 6 September 2015; Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg, 10 October 2015 - 17 January 2016