Spanning the transition from dramatic compositions to a lighter more decorative style, Ricci's work was closely aligned with Richard Neumann's taste for 17th- and 18th-century Italian painting. The Nazi mandated inventory of the Neumann's possessions from 1938 indicates that he owned three paintings by the artist. Dr. Neumann brought "Abraham and the Three Angles" with him to Paris. Following the occupation of France by Nazi Germany in 1940, however, he found it necessary to sell it to the German art dealer Karl Haberstock. Haberstock, in turn, sold it to the Special Commission Linz (Sonderauftrag Linz) the organization charged with realizing Hitler's Fuhrermuseum.

After the war, it was brought to the Munich Central Collecting Point, which had been set up by the Monuments Men to process the caches of art they had uncovered. The Monuments Men, among them the Worcester Art Museum's own directors Francis Henry Taylor, Charles Sawyer and George Stout and curator Perry Cott, were American and British fine art professionals that worked to protect Europe's cultural treasures during World War II and facilitate the return of art when the hostilities ended. From Munich, the painting travel to Paris, where it was kept at the Louvre until 1954 when it was transferred to the Musee d'art moderne in Saint-Etienne.

Sebastiano Ricci
circa 1695