Focus on this artwork and explain the Provenance.
The first mention of the painting dates from 3 February 1791 when Joseph Delorge, painter and director of the Bergues drawing school, was commissioned to write the Etats et Notices des Monuments et Peinture, sculpture and engraving from the furniture of the Abbey of Saint-Winoc in Bergues. It is thus described there, at number 77: "A poor man playing the hurdy-gurdy, orig[inal] by Carache [sic] Urbain, on canvas, 5 ft, 6 in by 3 ft 6 in". Kept for a time in the abbey library, it was transferred, with the entire deposit, to the former Jesuit college in the city between 3 December 1792 and 5 January 1793.In 1800, the painting was one of the thirty-eight works that the sub-prefect Louis Schadet chose "to adorn the audience hall and adjoining rooms" of the sub-prefecture of Bergues, then installed at the Town Hall. In the handwritten list that he established on the occasion of the transfer, the painting, under number 12, is presented as a "blind man playing the hurdy-gurdy, led by his dog", and attributed to "Michelangelo" – meaning Caravaggio. It entered the museum of Bergues in 1838.  It is then described, without attribution but as an original painting, under number 18 of the Catalogue of existing paintings of at the hotel of the town hall of the city of Bergues as "a beggar of natural size 175 × 130 cm".In 1842, the painting was entrusted, along with other works, to the painter Fabien-Napoléon Léoni to be restored. The relatively high cost of this restoration, which amounts to 250 francs, suggests that the painting was already in poor condition. Around 1846, it was placed in the gallery that the town hall dedicated to this purpose. A handwritten list, probably made by one of the members of the museum commission, then attributes The Old Man to Zurbarán.
In 1871, the painting was welcomed into the rooms of the new town hall converted into a museum. In the Catalogue of paintings exhibited in the gallery of the museum of Bergues written by the painter and restorer Pierre-Antoine Verlinde (1801–1877), the Beggar playing the hurdy-gurdy, under number 97, is attributed to José de Ribera. It is described as follows: "A blind old man, covered with a ragged garment and cloak, sings to the accompaniment of an hurdy-gurdy. The dog leading him by a rope is lying at his feet."It was transferred to the city's former Mont-de-Piété when it was transformed into a museum in 1953.
Bergues José de Ribera Caravaggio Zurbarán hurdy-gurdy