{
"data": {
"id": 148970,
"accession_number": "1977.127",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Singers, 1863\u20131868. Th\u00e9odule Ribot (French, 1823\u20131891). Oil on fabric; framed: 88.9 x 75.6 x 6.8 cm (35 x 29 3/4 x 2 11/16 in.); unframed: 74 x 60.3 cm (29 1/8 x 23 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Noah L. Butkin, 1977.127",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Singers",
"creation_date": "1863\u20131868",
"creation_date_earliest": 1863,
"creation_date_latest": 1868,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"France, 19th century"
],
"technique": "oil on fabric",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Modern European Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960",
"type": "Painting",
"measurements": "Framed: 88.9 x 75.6 x 6.8 cm (35 x 29 3/4 x 2 11/16 in.); Unframed: 74 x 60.3 cm (29 1/8 x 23 3/4 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"framed": {
"height": 0.889,
"height_inch": 35,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"width": 0.756,
"width_inch": 29,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.75,
"depth": 0.068,
"depth_inch": 2,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.6875
},
"unframed": {
"height": 0.74,
"height_inch": 29,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.125,
"width": 0.603,
"width_inch": 23,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.75
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Signed lower left: t. Ribot\r\n",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 302666,
"title": "Year in Review: 1977",
"description": "Year in Review: 1977. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 28, 1977-January 22, 1978).",
"opening_date": "1977-12-28T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 304507,
"title": "The Realist Tradition: French Painting and Drawing 1830 - 1900",
"description": "The Realist Tradition: French Painting and Drawing 1830 - 1900. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 12, 1980-January 18, 1981).",
"opening_date": "1980-11-12T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 310235,
"title": "Lutes, Lovers, and Lyres: Musical Imagery in the Collection",
"description": "Lutes, Lovers, and Lyres: Musical Imagery in the Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 14-June 11, 1989).",
"opening_date": "1989-02-14T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 229926,
"title": "Breaking the Mold: The Legacy of the Noah L. and Muriel S. Butkin Collection of Nineteenth-Century French Art",
"description": "Breaking the Mold: The Legacy of the Noah L. and Muriel S. Butkin Collection of Nineteenth-Century French Art. Snite Museum, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN (organizer) (September 2-December 2, 2012).",
"opening_date": "2012-09-26T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 396858,
"title": "Th\u00e9odule Ribot (1823-1891): A Delightful Darkness",
"description": "Th\u00e9odule Ribot (1823-1891): A Delightful Darkness. Mus\u00e9e des Augustins, Toulouse, France (October 16, 2021-January 2, 2022) https://www.augustins.org/en/exhibition-theodule-ribot; Mus\u00e9e des Beaux-Arts, Marseille, Marseille, France (February 10-May 15, 2022); Mus\u00e9e des Beaux-Arts de Caen, Caen, France (organizer) (June 11-October 2, 2022) https://mba.caen.fr/exposition/theodule-ribot.",
"opening_date": "2021-10-16T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Bordeaux, La Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des Amis des Arts de Bordeaux. (1865), no. 450.",
"opening_date": null
},
{
"description": "Paris, Galerie Bernheim Jeune. Exposition T. Ribot (1890), no. 226, Le concert, 72 x 60 cm, sign\u00e9 dans le coin et \u00e0 droite (cma painting is signed lower left, but the extensive description otherwise fits perfectly).",
"opening_date": null
},
{
"description": "Probably Paris, Palais National de l'\u00c9cole des Beaux-Arts. Exposition Th. Ribot (1892), no. 26, Une r\u00e9p\u00e9tition, 73 x 60 cm, appartient \u00e0 M. de H. (stamp with initials \"PH\" on reverse could refer to this owner).",
"opening_date": null
},
{
"description": "Possibly Paris, Galerie Bernheim Jeune. Exposition Ribot (1911), no. 19, Les chanteurs.",
"opening_date": "1911-01-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "CMA; Brooklyn Museum; Saint Louis Art Museum; Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum. The Realist Tradition: French Painting and Drawing 1830-1900 (1980-82), 50, no. 12 (repr.). Text by Gabriel P. Weisberg.",
"opening_date": "1900-01-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Snite Museum of Art, Notre Dame University, South Bend, IN (8/26/2012 - 11/15/2012): \"Breaking the Mold: The Legacy of Noah L. and Muriel S. Butkin Collection of Nineteenth-Century French Art\", ex. cat. no. 66, p. 192-193.",
"opening_date": "2012-08-26T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "(Probably Bernheim-Jeune, Paris)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [
"The 1892 Exposition T. Ribot, held at Bernheim-Jeune, includes a painting entitled \u201cLe Concert\u201d (no. 226), whose lengthy, detailed description matches that of the Cleveland picture perfectly. The given dimensions are 72 x 60 cm, just one centimeter off in height from Singers. The catalogue description says that the signature is in the lower right, while the Cleveland painting is signed in the lower left; this is most likely an error, as it seems almost certain that the exhibited work and the Cleveland picture are one and the same given the precise description and dimensions.
"
],
"date": "1890",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "(Possibly Monsieur de H.)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [
"A Ribot painting at the Palais National de l\u2019\u00c9cole des Beaux-Arts entitled \u201cUne R\u00e9p\u00e9tition\u201d (no. 26) matches the dimensions of Singers exactly. \u201cM. de H.\u201d is the listed owner and may refer to the same collector indicated on the painting\u2019s stretcher by a stamp that reads \u201cPH.\u201d
"
],
"date": "By 1892",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "Frederick R. Sears, Jr. [1855-1939], Boston",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [
"A typewritten label on the back of the stretcher reads, \u201cFrom the collection of Frederick R. Sears,\" referring not to Frederick R. Sears, a noted art collector, but to his son, Frederick R. Sears, Jr. Sears, Jr. lent the Ribot to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston from July 11, 1894 until October 11, 1895. The painting (\"Bohemian Singers\") is listed in the 1895 Catalogue of Paintings and Drawings with a Summary of other Works of Art. While some publications place Sears directly before Norton Gallery in the provenance, given that he certainly owned the painting in 1894-1895, it seems that he should in fact precede Bernheim-Jeune\u2019s 1925 purchase of the painting.
"
],
"date": "By 1895",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "(Bernheim-Jeune, Paris)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [
"Bernheim-Jeune purchased this painting (stock no. 5982/BJ; label visible on stretcher) in November 1925. The date of sale was illegible in the firm\u2019s stock book, which contained no additional information concerning the circumstances of the painting\u2019s acquisition, sale, or earlier provenance.
"
],
"date": "1925",
"sortorder": 4
},
{
"description": "Norton Gallery, New York",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "?",
"sortorder": 5
},
{
"description": "Noah L. [1918-1980] and Muriel S. Butkin [1915-1908], Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "Until 1977",
"sortorder": 6
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1977-",
"sortorder": 7
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "Ribot participated in a loosely defined artistic movement known as Realism, which sought to depict the gritty lives of workers and peasants. Often dark in tone and somber in mood, Realist paintings focused attention on social problems. Poor singers like these could be seen on the streets of Paris, but pictures of such singers were already a long-established theme in art history.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60473269"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1977.127-singers"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "MM. Bernheim Jeune & cie (Paris, France). Exposition T. Ribot: catalogue raisonne\u0301 ",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Exposition Th. Ribot au Palais National de l'E\u0301cole des Beaux-Arts. Paris: Bibliothe\u0300que Nationale, 1991.",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Catalogue of Paintings and Drawings, with a Summary of Other Works of Art Exhibited on the Second Floor, Summer, 1895. Boston: A. Mudge & Son, printers, 1895.",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "d'Argencourt, Louise, Roger Diederen, and Alisa Luxenberg. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999.",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Catherine O'Reilly, email to Victoria Reed, Dec. 29, 2015, in CMA curatorial file.",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Guy-Patrice Dauberville, letter to Victoria Sears Goldman, July 28, 2015, in CMA curatorial file.",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "d'Argencourt, Louise, Roger Diederen, and Alisa Luxenberg. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999.",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Weisberg, Gabriel P. \u201cTh\u00e9odule Ribot: Popular Imagery and the Little Milkmaid.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 63, no. 8 (October 1976): 253\u2013263.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 258-261, figs. 13-15",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152657"
},
{
"citation": "Lee, Sherman E. \u201cThe Year in Review for 1977.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 65, no. 1 (January 1978): 2\u201342.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 39, no. 41",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25159560"
},
{
"citation": "\u201cAnnual Report for 1977.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 65, no. 6 (June 1978): 177\u2013215.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: Back cover",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25159587"
},
{
"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. 544-546, Vol. II, no. 191",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Georget, Luc. \"Sous le Scalpel de Ribot.\" In The\u0301odule Ribot, 1823-1891: Une De\u0301licieuse Obscurite\u0301. Emmanuelle Delapierre, Luc Georget, Gabriel Weisberg, eds., 118-181. Paris: LienArt, 2021.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: P. 148-149, no. 46",
"url": ""
}
],
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"creditline": "Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Noah L. Butkin",
"image_credit": null,
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{
"id": 1582,
"description": "Th\u00e9odule Ribot (French, 1823\u20131891)",
"extent": null,
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"role": "artist",
"biography": "Th\u00e9odule Ribot first tried to study art at the trade school in Ch\u00e2lons, \u00c9cole des Arts et M\u00e9tiers. When his father died in 1840, Ribot had to help support his family. He worked as a bookkeeper in Rouen, married early, and left for Paris in 1845. There he did various jobs, studied in the atelier of Auguste-Barth\u00e9l\u00e9my Glaize (1807-1893), and, in 1848, went to Algeria to work as a foreman for three years. Back in Paris, he befriended the painter Bonvin (q.v.), who held an exhibition of pictures by his friends in his studio in 1859. These artists, including Fantin-Latour (q.v.), Alphonse Legros (1837-1911), Antoine Vollon (1833-1900), and J. A. M. Whistler (1834-1903), depicted ordinary subjects from their immediate environments without relying on narrative, and they generally used somber colors, limited illumination, and broader brushwork that contrasted with academic standards and methods. Their work elicited a positive response from Courbet (q.v.), considered the father of realism in France. Ribot first exhibited at a Paris Salon in 1861, when his kitchen scenes won generally favorable reviews. To underscore a humble life-style for the artist, his early biographers claim that the dark, inky backgrounds of his pictures were the result of Ribot's painting by lamplight in his free evenings at home. He continued to depict working-class and peasant subjects in a style variously described as Dutch or Spanish by critics, and he participated in the Salons and provincial and international art exhibitions. Always interested in expanding exhibition opportunities for independent painters like himself, he signed a petition in 1863 that decried the Salon jury's numerous rejections that year and contributed to the official decision to hold the Salon des Refus\u00e9s. Ribot sold his pictures through art galleries in Paris, such as those of Louis Martinet, Alfred Cadart, and Bernheim Jeune, and the French state bought his St. Sebastian (Mus\u00e9e d'Orsay, Paris) in 1865. In 1878 he was named to the Legion of Honor. The following year a serious illness kept Ribot from painting for two years, and his production fell off after this period. In 1884 his fellow artists, including Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884), Boudin (q.v.), Fantin-Latour, Monet (q.v.), Puvis de Chavannes (q.v.), and Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), held a banquet in his honor and gave him a medal inscribed \"To Th\u00e9odule Ribot, the independent painter.\" It is ironic, then, that the year after his death a major retrospective exhibition was organized at the official art school, the \u00c9cole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1823",
"death_year": "1891",
"use_in_caption": true,
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"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1977-10-20T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1863,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1863\u20131868",
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"is_nazi_era_provenance": true,
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"updated_at": "2026-09-16 16:19:04.136000"
}
}