{
"data": {
"id": 124256,
"accession_number": "1945.25",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Lion on the Watch, c. 1885. Jean-L\u00e9on G\u00e9r\u00f4me (French, 1824\u20131904). Oil on wood panel; framed: 105 x 133 x 13.5 cm (41 5/16 x 52 3/8 x 5 5/16 in.); unframed: 72.3 x 100.5 cm (28 7/16 x 39 9/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. F. W. Gehring in memory of her husband, F. W. Gehring, 1945.25",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Lion on the Watch",
"creation_date": "c. 1885",
"creation_date_earliest": 1880,
"creation_date_latest": 1890,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"France, 19th century"
],
"technique": "oil on wood panel",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Modern European Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960",
"type": "Painting",
"measurements": "Framed: 105 x 133 x 13.5 cm (41 5/16 x 52 3/8 x 5 5/16 in.); Unframed: 72.3 x 100.5 cm (28 7/16 x 39 9/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"framed": {
"height": 1.05,
"height_inch": 41,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.3125,
"width": 1.33,
"width_inch": 52,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.375,
"depth": 0.135,
"depth_inch": 5,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.3125
},
"unframed": {
"height": 0.723,
"height_inch": 28,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.4375,
"width": 1.005,
"width_inch": 39,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.5625
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Signed lower left: j. l. gerome\r\n\r\n",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 300853,
"title": "Baron Gros, Painter of Battles: The First Romantic Painter",
"description": "Baron Gros, Painter of Battles: The First Romantic Painter. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 8-April 15, 1956).",
"opening_date": "1956-03-08T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 444952,
"title": "Jean-Leon Gerome (1824 - 1904)",
"description": "Jean-Leon Gerome (1824 - 1904). Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH (organizer) (November 10-December 31, 1972); Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN (January 26-March 11, 1973); Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, MD (April 6-May 20, 1973).",
"opening_date": "1972-11-10T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 310015,
"title": "Animals as Romantic Icons in French Art",
"description": "Animals as Romantic Icons in French Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 6-July 27, 1986).",
"opening_date": "1986-04-06T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 220660,
"title": "Jean-L\u00e9on G\u00e9r\u00f4me",
"description": "Jean-L\u00e9on G\u00e9r\u00f4me. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA (June 15-September 12, 2010); Mus\u00e9e d'Orsay, Paris, France (organizer) (October 18, 2010-January 23, 2011).",
"opening_date": "2010-06-15T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 441481,
"title": "Gallery One 2012",
"description": "Gallery One 2012. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 12, 2012-March 5, 2017).",
"opening_date": "2012-12-12T05:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Dayton Art Institute; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery. Jean-L\u00e9on G\u00e9r\u00f4me 1824-1904 (1972-73), no. 35 (repr.).",
"opening_date": "1904-01-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (6/15/2010 - 9/12/2010) and Mus\u00e9e d'Orsay, Paris (10/18/2010 - 1/23/2011): \"Jean-L\u00e9on G\u00e9r\u00f4me\"",
"opening_date": "2010-06-15T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Frederick Gehring, Cleveland. Given to the CMA in 1945.",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": null
},
{
"description": "(Knoedler & Co., New York, sold to Frederick Gehring in 1904)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": 2
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "In addition to his fascination with the classical past, G\u00e9r\u00f4me was one of the leading painters of \"orientalist\" subjects-exotic and romantic themes inspired by Napoleonic adventures abroad, romantic literature, and European colonialism. From 1855, G\u00e9r\u00f4me travelled regularly in Turkey, Egypt, and Asia Minor. Long fascinated by African animals, he sketched lions in the Paris zoo as a student and later hunted them on safari in North Africa.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60515151"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1945.25-lion-on-the-watch"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Francis, Henry. \"'Lion on the Watch,' by Jean L\u00e9on G\u00e9r\u00f4me.\" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 33, no. 4 (April 1946): 47-48",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 48; Reproduced: p. 51",
"url": "https://www.jstor.org/stable/25141274"
},
{
"citation": "Argencourt, Louise d', and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: P. 293-295, Vol. I, no. 105",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Ackerman, Gerald M. Jean-Le\u0301on Ge\u0301ro\u0302me: monographie re\u0301vise\u0301e, catalogue raisonne\u0301 mis a\u0300 jour. Courbevoie: ACR, 2000.",
"page_number": "Reproduced and mentioned: pp. 372-373, cat. 529",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1945.25",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1945.25/1945.25_web.jpg",
"width": "1245",
"height": "893",
"filesize": "703311",
"filename": "1945.25_web.jpg"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1945.25/1945.25_print.jpg",
"width": "3400",
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"filesize": "5052714",
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},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1945.25/1945.25_full.tif",
"width": "5904",
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},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Gift of Mrs. F. W. Gehring in memory of her husband, F. W. Gehring",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 124256,
"creators": [
{
"id": 1694,
"description": "Jean-L\u00e9on G\u00e9r\u00f4me (French, 1824\u20131904)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "Born in Vesoul near the Swiss border, Jean-L\u00e9on G\u00e9r\u00f4me grew up in comfort. His goldsmith father approved of his decision to become an artist and supported his study in Paris with Delaroche (q.v.) during the early 1840s. Delaroche's interest in historical reconstruction, precise detail, and smooth picture surface had a significant effect on the young student. After failing to win the Prix de Rome in 1846, which his father pressured him to enter, G\u00e9r\u00f4me decided to make his name at the Salons. His debut there in 1847 with A Cock Fight (Mus\u00e9e d'Orsay, Paris) was a huge success and brought him and his fellow neo-Grecs, as they were called, much attention. Several important commissions and purchases followed, including church decoration and the huge historical picture The Age of Augustus (Mus\u00e9e d'Orsay, Paris) that emulated the kind of classicizing panorama of Delaroche in the hemicycle for the \u00c9cole des Beaux-Arts. G\u00e9r\u00f4me also studied briefly with Charles Gleyre (1808-1874) after Delaroche closed his studio in 1842. Gleyre's travel and sketches from the Near and Middle East may also have played a critical role in introducing the young artist to another major interest of his career, orientalist subject matter. With the twenty thousand francs paid for The Age of Augustus, the artist treated himself to a trip to Constantinople with his actor-friend Edmond Got. Further travels to the Middle East followed, and G\u00e9r\u00f4me exhibited his first Egyptian themes in the 1857 Salon. \r\nIn the 1878 Universal Exposition in Paris, he exhibited his first attempts at sculpture, which corresponded closely with his painted works, first following their themes, then serving as models for his canvases, especially the Pygmalion pictures. During the 1880s he was, like several other artists, drawn to incorporate polychromy and various precious and semi-precious materials into his sculpture; this was known to be a widespread practice among ancient sculptors, and it heightened the illusion of lifelikeness as well as the decorative aspect of these works. \r\nAlthough he had not succeeded at the \u00c9cole des Beaux-Arts, G\u00e9r\u00f4me received one of three prestigious professorships in 1863 following the somewhat controversial reforms of the fine arts institutions in Paris. His official rather than academic achievements made him a good candidate to lead the new generation of French painters out of the decadence into which many believed French art had fallen. He taught hundreds of students in his atelier at the \u00c9cole as well as at his independent studio and had an especially strong impact on his American students, such as Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) and Frederick Arthur Bridgman (1847-1928). Although the majority of G\u00e9r\u00f4me's students remember him as an exacting but fair master, he showed intractable resistance to the new modes of impressionism and symbolism and campaigned against the acceptance of Gustave Caillebotte's (1843-1893) bequest of such art to the French state. \r\nIn 1863 G\u00e9r\u00f4me married Marie Goupil, the daughter of well-known international art dealer Adolphe Goupil, who became the exclusive representative of his work. Goupil not only sold his son-in-law's pictures through his branches in Europe and New York, but he also disseminated their reputation through photographic reproductions.1 G\u00e9r\u00f4me received all the highest honors awarded to nineteenth-century artists and achieved considerable financial success.\r\n1. See Linda Whiteley, \"Goupil, (Jean-Michel-) Adolphe,\" Dictionary of Art (London, 1996), 13:228; and Mus\u00e9e Goupil, Conservatoire de L'image Industrielle Bordeaux, \u00c9tat des lieux 1 (Bordeaux, 1994), esp. 9-36.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1824",
"death_year": "1904",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1945-02-21T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1880,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "c. 1885",
"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": true,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-29 06:24:26.690000"
}
}