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For his last Salon, in 1875, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux exhibited the bronze bust of his friend the painter Bruno Chérier (1817-1880) that he had given to him. The latter bequeathed it to the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Valenciennes in 1880. However, in the 1927 edition of this museum’s catalogue, a strange note indicated “Bruno Chérier bequeathed to the Musée de Saint-Quentin the bronze that was exhibited in the Salon of 1875.” As part of the preparation of the catalogue raisonné of the sculptures in the Musée des Beaux-Arts Antoine-Lécuyer in Saint-Quentin (Aisne), an investigation led to the explication of this note by correcting and completing our knowledge of both the conditions of the execution in Paris of this famous sculpture, unanimously praised at its presentation, but poorly documented, as well as the friendship that linked Carpeaux with Chérier’s three sons, who were symbolically united by the bust as each of them possessed a copy. This case study demonstrates the necessity for systematic provenance research of any work related to a museum work whose disappearance is unexplained.