{
"data": {
"id": 150491,
"accession_number": "1981.51",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Metaphysical Interior, c. 1917\u20131939. Attributed to Giorgio de Chirico (Italian, 1888\u20131978), and \u00d3scar Dom\u00ednquez (Spanish, 1906\u20131959). Oil on canvas; framed: 95.6 x 77.5 x 5.2 cm (37 5/8 x 30 1/2 x 2 1/16 in.); unframed: 73.2 x 54 cm (28 13/16 x 21 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1981.51",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Metaphysical Interior",
"creation_date": "c. 1917\u20131939",
"creation_date_earliest": 1917,
"creation_date_latest": 1939,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"Italy, 20th century"
],
"technique": "oil on canvas",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Modern European Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960",
"type": "Painting",
"measurements": "Framed: 95.6 x 77.5 x 5.2 cm (37 5/8 x 30 1/2 x 2 1/16 in.); Unframed: 73.2 x 54 cm (28 13/16 x 21 1/4 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"framed": {
"height": 0.956,
"height_inch": 37,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.625,
"width": 0.775,
"width_inch": 30,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.5,
"depth": 0.052,
"depth_inch": 2,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.0625
},
"unframed": {
"height": 0.732,
"height_inch": 28,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.8125,
"width": 0.54,
"width_inch": 21,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.25
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "signed lower right: G. de Chirico, inscribed on verso: CH--17.",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 304599,
"title": "The Year in Review for 1981",
"description": "The Year in Review for 1981. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 17-March 21, 1982).",
"opening_date": "1982-02-17T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 310025,
"title": "Creativity in Art and Science, 1860-1960",
"description": "Creativity in Art and Science, 1860-1960. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 16-November 8, 1987).",
"opening_date": "1987-09-16T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Paul Eluard [1895-1952], Paris",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [
"In a handwritten statement that was supplied with the painting upon its sale by E.V Thaw to CMA, Bernard Poissonnier said that he acquired the painting from Paul Eluard. Eluard\u2019s daughter, C\u00e9cile, confirmed that her father owned the painting \u201cavant la guerre,\u201d meaning prior to May 1940. While Eluard was likely the painting\u2019s first owner, with neither a firm attribution nor date of execution, Eluard\u2019s years of ownership are difficult to establish. It was previously thought that Eluard exhibited the painting at the Mus\u00e9e du Jeu de Paume in 1937. However, there is no evidence that this exhibition ever took place. The error may derive from confusion with a different exhibition at the Jeu de Paume, Origines et D\u00e9veloppement de l\u2019art international ind\u00e9pendant, which included a de Chirico painting titled Int\u00e9rieur m\u00e9taphysique from the Eluard collection. The catalogue is not illustrated, but installation photographs indicate it was not the Cleveland painting that was exhibited, and that the catalogue must therefore refer to a different work of the same title. Eluard\u2019s ownership of this work also points to its authorship by, if not de Chirico himself, then someone in his circle, possibly \u00d3scar Dom\u00ednguez or Max Ernst. C\u00e9cile Eluard recalled that Ernst enjoyed executing works in the manner of de Chirico, and it was Ernst who painted the earliest known de Chirico forgery.
"
],
"date": "Before 1940-before 1952",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "Bernard Poissonnier, Paris",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [
"In 1952, the Cleveland picture was exhibited as part of Poissonnier\u2019s collection in the Basel Kunsthalle exhibition, Phantastiche Kunst des XX Jahrhunderts.
"
],
"date": "by 1952",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "(E. V. Thaw, New York, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "Until 1981",
"sortorder": 4
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1984-",
"sortorder": 5
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "Greatly admired by the Surrealists, de Chirico joined the movement shortly after its formation in Paris in 1924. The Surrealist considered his \"metaphysical\" paintings of the 1910s models for exploring the unconscious through dream imagery. For years this painting, owned by Surrealist poet Paul \u00c9luard in the 1930s, was attributed to de Chirico by leading experts, including James Thrall Soby and William Rubin. More recently that attribution has been challenged, and some authorities now assign it to fellow Surrealist \u00d3scar Dom\u00ednquez. \u00c9luard's daughter, C\u00e9cile Grindel, believes it was painted by her father's close friend, the German Surrealist Max Ernst. The Surrealists enjoyed confounding reality by disorienting viewers through visual paradoxes and games of irrational role reversal, which in some cases involved painting compositions in the style of their colleagues.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60474778"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Robinson, William H. \u201cDe Chirco Forgeries: The Treachery of the Surrealists.\u201d IFAR Journal 4, no. 1 (2001): 10-17.",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Lee, Sherman E. \u201cThe Year in Review for 1981.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 69, no. 2 (February 1982): 39\u201382.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 58; Mentioned: p. 79, no. 34",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25159758"
},
{
"citation": "Henning, Edward B. \u201c\u2018Metaphysical Interior\u2019: An Early Painting by Giorgio de Chirico.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 70, no. 4 (April 1983): 138\u2013146.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 138, fig. 1 and Cover",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25159811"
},
{
"citation": "Henning, Edward B. Creativity in Art and Science, 1860-1960. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Published by the Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1987.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: P. 71, pl. VI; Mentioned and reproduced: P. 126-127, no. 35",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Arendsee, M., and M. Steinman-Arendsee. \"Take the CAN disability aesthetics tour, at the Cleveland Museum of art.\" CAN Journal (Winter 2019/20): 76-87.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 86",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Guerra Cabrera, Jose\u0301 Carlos. \u00d3scar Dom\u00ednguez: Obra, Contexto y Tragedia. Islas Canarias: Jos\u00e9 Carlos Guerra Cabrera, 2020.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: P. 159, fig. 136",
"url": ""
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1981.51",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "John L. Severance Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 150491,
"creators": [
{
"id": 5711,
"description": "Giorgio de Chirico (Italian, 1888\u20131978)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": "attributed to",
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1888",
"death_year": "1978",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
},
{
"id": 58617,
"description": "\u00d3scar Dom\u00ednquez (Spanish, 1906\u20131959)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": "and",
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1906",
"death_year": "1959",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 2
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1981-12-08T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1917,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "c. 1917\u20131939",
"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": "2026-05-01 06:51:05.135000"
}
}