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Created by Richard Dadd (1817–1886), the artist; ...; acquired by Richard Gibson Reeves (1793–1864), Hawthorn House, Birmingham, England [1]; purchased at auction by William Cox, London, England, at Foster, in London, England March 29–30, 1865 (lot 142, ‘Portrait of A.L. Egg, Esq. R.A.’), in "Celebrated Collection of High Class Modern Pictures" [2][a]; sale, Robinson & Fisher, London, England, March 13–14, 1883 (lot 175, ‘Portrait of Augustus Egg, Esq. R.A., in character’) [b]; ...; purchased at auction by ‘Roger’ at Christie, Manson & Woods, in London, England, June 28–30, 1888 (lot 78, ‘Portrait of A. Egg, R.A.’), in "Ancient & Modern Pictures" [c]; ...; acquired by William Cornelius van Horne (1843–1915), Montreal, Canada [3][d]; ...; purchased at auction by Herner Wengraf, Ltd., London, England at Sotheby’s Parke-Bernet, in New York, NY, United States, October 10, 1973 (lot 87, ‘Portrait of a Young Man, Head and Shoulders, Wearing a Uniform’), in "Important 19th & early 20th century European paintings" [4][e]; purchased by Paul Mellon, 1974 [f]; by whom given to the Yale Center for British Art, 1974.

Notes:
[1] Richard Gibson Reeves was a Birmingham-based merchant, benefactor, and art collector. He served as the churchwarden for St Luke's Church, located on Bristol Street, Birmingham.

[2] William Cox was a British art dealer and collector who operated the commercial British Gallery in Pall Mall. Cox filed for bankruptcy in 1883, leading to the closure of his gallery and the sale of his remaining pictures between 1883 and 1884.

[3] William Cornelius van Horne was an American businessman and railroad magnate, best known for overseeing Canada’s first transcontinental railway. Van Horne lived in Canada due to his role as president of the Canadian Pacific Railway. He was an extensive art collector, often procuring artworks during his international business trips.

Van Horne exhibited a painting by Dadd titled The Corsican in the 1898 and 1933 loan exhibitions hosted by the Art Association of Montreal—the predecessor to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. There is no documented painting with this title in Patricia Allderidge’s catalogue raisonné, nor any other publication on Dadd. However, Allderidge does attribute previous ownership of this portrait to van Horne. It is possible that The Corsican may be this painting, however, that has not yet been confirmed.

[4] Herner Wengraf, Ltd. was a London-based art gallery active in the 1970s that specialized in Old Masters.

Citations:
[a] Messrs. Foster, Catalogue of the Celebrated Collection of High Class Modern Pictures... The Property of the Late Richard Gibson Reeves, Esq. (London: J. Davy & Sons, 1865), 23.

[b] Robinson & Fisher, A Catalogue of a Valuable Collection of Portraits...Selected with great judgment and taste by Mr. William Cox (London: Doherty & Co., 1883), 24.

[c] Messrs. Christie, Manson & Woods, Catalogue of Ancient and Modern Pictures (London: Wm. Clowes & Sons, Ltd., 1888), 10.

[d] Patricia Allderidge, The Late Richard Dadd, 1817–1886 (London: Tate Britain, 1974), 56.

[e] Sotheby Parke Bernet, Inc., Important 19th & 20th Century European Paintings (New York: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1973), lot 85.

[f] Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 76-77 .