{
"data": {
"id": 159875,
"accession_number": "1997.178",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "The Rest on the Flight into Egypt (recto); Sketch of a Sphinx [?] (verso), c. 1879\u201380. Luc-Olivier Merson (French, 1846\u20131920). Gray and graphite wash, with scraping and traces of black chalk; sheet: 14.5 x 25.5 cm (5 11/16 x 10 1/16 in.); secondary support: 27.9 x 39 cm (11 x 15 3/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1997.178",
"current_location": null,
"title": "The Rest on the Flight into Egypt (recto); Sketch of a Sphinx [?] (verso)",
"creation_date": "c. 1879\u201380",
"creation_date_earliest": 1879,
"creation_date_latest": 1880,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"France, 19th century"
],
"technique": "gray and graphite wash, with scraping and traces of black chalk",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Drawings",
"collection": "DR - French",
"type": "Drawing",
"measurements": "Sheet: 14.5 x 25.5 cm (5 11/16 x 10 1/16 in.); Secondary Support: 27.9 x 39 cm (11 x 15 3/8 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"sheet": {
"height": 0.145,
"height_inch": 5,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.6875,
"width": 0.255,
"width_inch": 10,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0625
},
"secondary support": {
"height": 0.279,
"height_inch": 11,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"width": 0.39,
"width_inch": 15,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.375
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "verso: upper right, in graphite: [8?].86 x [8?].[7?]1 [sideways]",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Galerie David Jones, Paris",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": null
},
{
"description": "Galerie David Jones, Paris",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "It is possible that this drawing served as a model for a print, but the best-known printed reproduction of the painting differs from the sheet in several minor details.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "This drawing relates to Luc-Olivier Merson's Rest on the Flight into Egypt, among the most popular paintings exhibited at the 1879 Paris Salon. This dreamlike, highly unusual image from the familiar bible story shows Mary and Christ resting peacefully in the arms of a Sphinx, while Joseph sleeps near their dwindling fire. In the wake of its extraordinary success, Merson made several painted replicas of the work. Here, the composition is identical, but reversed, suggesting that it may have been an alternative version of the canvas.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79980195"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1997.178-the-rest-on-the-flig"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Cable, Patrick Shaw. \u201cFrom North Africa to the Black Sea: Nineteenth-Century French Orientalist Drawings.\u201d Cleveland Studies in the History of Art 7 (2002): 104\u2013125.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 105, fig. 2",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/20079721"
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1997.178",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
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"width": "900",
"height": "255",
"filesize": "137937",
"filename": "1997.178_web.jpg"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1997.178/1997.178_print.jpg",
"width": "3400",
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"filesize": "1029680",
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"date_created": "2010-11-18T20:49:52",
"annotation": ""
}
],
"creditline": "John L. Severance Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 159875,
"creators": [
{
"id": 9567,
"description": "Luc-Olivier Merson (French, 1846\u20131920)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1846",
"death_year": "1920",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1997-09-15T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1879,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "c. 1879\u201380",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "cover",
"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": "2026-05-29 08:17:39.243000"
}
}