Collection Online

The last resting place of Coco
(La Derniere Étape de Coco)
(1878)

Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
93.0 × 117.5 cm
Inscription
inscribed in black paint l.l.: Beyle
Accession Number
p.308.1-1
Department
International Painting
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1881
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Ms Carol Grigor through Metal Manufactures Limited
Gallery location
Gallery 18
Level 3, NGV Australia
About this work

This sentimental painting was acquired from the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880. Described at the time as ‘full of pathos and poetry’, the painting found less favour with the NGV’s director Bernard Hall a generation later. In 1900, in his report to the Trustees on the gallery’s purchasing policy, Hall complained that: ‘It is catering for popularity and making a kind of scrapbook of the Gallery that pictures such as “La Drenière Étape de Coco” came to be bought’.

Subjects (general)
Animals Emotions and Mental States Human Figures
Subjects (specific)
caravans (animal-drawn vehicles) children (people by age group) deaths dog (species) elderly grief horse (species) snow (precipitation)
Provenance
Exhibited Salon, Paris, 1878, no. 220; exhibited Sydney International Exhibition, 1879; exhibited French Court, Mebourne International Exhibition, 1880–81; from where purchased for the NGV, 1881.

Exhibited Salon, Paris, 1878, no 220;  Sydney International Exhibition, Sydney, 1879; French Court, Melbourne International Exhibition, Melbourne 1880–81.


Frame

The frame takes the form of a Classical revival Academy style frame.

Framemaker
Unknown - 19th century
Date
1878
Materials

timber, composition, gold leaf

Frame Condition

outer edge overpainted with gold paint through to sanded slip