{
"data": {
"id": 120821,
"accession_number": "1941.547",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Aeneas in the Underworld, Design for a Fan, after 1730. Follower of Fran\u00e7ois Boucher (French, 1703\u20131770). Watercolor and gouache; sheet: 27.2 x 54.8 cm (10 11/16 x 21 9/16 in.); secondary support: 35.2 x 64.7 cm (13 7/8 x 25 1/2 in.); tertiary support: 35.2 x 64.7 cm (13 7/8 x 25 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Otto Miller, 1941.547",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Aeneas in the Underworld, Design for a Fan",
"creation_date": "after 1730",
"creation_date_earliest": 1730,
"creation_date_latest": 1799,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"France"
],
"technique": "watercolor and gouache",
"support_materials": [
{
"description": "laid paper, laid down on two pieces (joined) of brown laid paper, laid down on a tertiary support of cream(3) laid paper",
"watermarks": []
}
],
"department": "Drawings",
"collection": "DR - French",
"type": "Drawing",
"measurements": "Sheet: 27.2 x 54.8 cm (10 11/16 x 21 9/16 in.); Secondary Support: 35.2 x 64.7 cm (13 7/8 x 25 1/2 in.); Tertiary Support: 35.2 x 64.7 cm (13 7/8 x 25 1/2 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"sheet": {
"height": 0.272,
"height_inch": 10,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.6875,
"width": 0.548,
"width_inch": 21,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.5625
},
"secondary support": {
"height": 0.352,
"height_inch": 13,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.875,
"width": 0.647,
"width_inch": 25,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.5
},
"tertiary support": {
"height": 0.352,
"height_inch": 13,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.875,
"width": 0.647,
"width_inch": 25,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.5
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 311482,
"title": "Fans: East and West",
"description": "Fans: East and West. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 15, 1992-March 7, 1993).",
"opening_date": "1992-12-15T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 665048,
"title": "Imagination in the Age of Reason",
"description": "Imagination in the Age of Reason. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 28, 2024-March 2, 2025).",
"opening_date": "2024-09-28T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Mrs. Otto Miller, Cleveland Heights, OH, given to The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "?\u20131941",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "December 5, 1941\u2013",
"sortorder": 2
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "The 1700s is often considered to be a golden age of fan design.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "Both practical and fashionable, fans were essential accessories for elite European women in the 1700s. Often decorated with elaborate motifs, a fan could reveal information about its wearer. It might expose a woman\u2019s artistic or literary tastes, divulge her politics, or disclose her knowledge of current cultural conversations. The design seen here represents an episode from The Aeneid, a Latin epic poem, suggesting the owner\u2019s interest in recent translations of classical poetry. It could also operate as a metaphor for the Enlightenment: seen entering a cave at right, the hero, Aeneas, travels through the underworld where he faces harrowing challenges and converses with the dead before emerging newly enlightened and victorious.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q80016460"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1941.547-sketch-for-the-aenei",
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1941.547-aeneas-in-the-underw"
]
},
"citations": [],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1941.547",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1941.547/1941.547_web.jpg",
"width": "1263",
"height": "639",
"filesize": "107875",
"filename": "1941.547_web.jpg"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1941.547/1941.547_print.jpg",
"width": "3400",
"height": "1720",
"filesize": "645178",
"filename": "1941.547_print.jpg"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1941.547/1941.547_full.tif",
"width": "5283",
"height": "2674",
"filesize": "42408080",
"filename": "1941.547_full.tif"
}
},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Gift of Mrs. Otto Miller",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 120821,
"creators": [
{
"id": 1888,
"description": "Fran\u00e7ois Boucher (French, 1703\u20131770)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": "follower of",
"role": "artist",
"biography": "French Rococo artist who epitomizes the frivolous and elegant court life of France in the mid-18th century. During his early career he was closely associated with Watteau, many of whose paintings he engraved. Boucher was a successful and incredibly prolific artistic who had a major impact on both fine and decorative art of the 18th century. He is particularly noted for having reinvented the genre of the pastoral, creating images of shepherds and shepherdesses as sentimental lovers that was taken up in a variety of medium. Boucher's sketchy manner of painting helped to promote painterliness as an end in itself. This trend dominated French painting until the emergence of Neoclassicism, when the tides of criticism turned against Boucher and his followers.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1703",
"death_year": "1770",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1941-12-05T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1730,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "after 1730",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-08-22 11:53:12.185000"
}
}