{
    "data": {
        "id": 163040,
        "accession_number": "2003.6.1",
        "share_license_status": "CC0",
        "tombstone": "Polyhymnia, Muse of Eloquence, 1800. Charles Meynier (French, 1768\u20131832). Oil on canvas; overall: 275 x 177 cm (108 1/4 x 69 11/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund, 2003.6.1",
        "current_location": "001A ArtLens Exhibition",
        "title": "Polyhymnia, Muse of Eloquence",
        "creation_date": "1800",
        "creation_date_earliest": 1800,
        "creation_date_latest": 1800,
        "artists_tags": [
            "male"
        ],
        "culture": [
            "France, late 18th-early 19th century"
        ],
        "technique": "oil on canvas",
        "support_materials": [],
        "department": "Modern European Painting and Sculpture",
        "collection": "Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960",
        "type": "Painting",
        "measurements": "Overall: 275 x 177 cm (108 1/4 x 69 11/16 in.)",
        "dimensions": {
            "overall": {
                "height": 2.75,
                "height_inch": 108,
                "height_inch_fraction": 0.25,
                "width": 1.77,
                "width_inch": 69,
                "width_inch_fraction": 0.6875
            }
        },
        "state_of_the_work": null,
        "edition_of_the_work": null,
        "copyright": null,
        "inscriptions": [],
        "exhibitions": {
            "current": [
                {
                    "id": 705279,
                    "title": "ArtLens Reimagined: The Intersection of Art, Technology, and Innovation",
                    "description": "<i>ArtLens Reimagined: The Intersection of Art, Technology, and Innovation</i>. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 23, 2026-September 1, 2031).",
                    "opening_date": "2026-07-23T04:00:00"
                }
            ],
            "legacy": []
        },
        "provenance": [
            {
                "description": "In 1819, Nicolas-Antoine de Castella, general of the Swiss regiments in France, purchased the paintings and placed them in his Castle of Wallenreid, Switzerland; direct descendants; Pierre de Castella, Mannaz, Switzerland.",
                "citations": [],
                "footnotes": null,
                "date": null,
                "sortorder": null
            }
        ],
        "find_spot": null,
        "related_works": [],
        "former_accession_numbers": [],
        "did_you_know": "Meynier was trained in a studio known by the students of Jacques-Louis David as the atelier of the \"perruques\" (wigs), a name given to royalists or conservatives of the period.",
        "early_education_description": null,
        "artlens_description": "INTERACTIVE <br><strong>Here is your chance to Talk to the Art</strong> <br>Ask Clio to tell you more about the details of the painting of herself and her companion, Polyhymnia, or ask her to tell you a story.",
        "description": "Polyhymnia is one of the nine muses in Greek mythology and a patron of dancing or geometry. She is portrayed here standing in front of a bust of the Athenian orator Demosthenes. This painting belongs to a cycle of five works commissioned by businessman Fran\u00e7ois Boyer-Fonfr\u00e9de for his home in Toulouse.",
        "external_resources": {
            "wikidata": [
                "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60479780"
            ],
            "internet_archive": [
                "https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-2003.6.1-polyhymnia-muse-of-e"
            ]
        },
        "citations": [
            {
                "citation": "Bellenger, Sylvain. \"Magnificent Muses\", Cleveland Museum of Art. <em>Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine</em>. Vol. 44 no. 01, January 2004",
                "page_number": "Mentioned & reproduced: p. 4-5",
                "url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2004-01/page/n3"
            },
            {
                "citation": "Bracken Sparks, Amy, \"Disappearing Act\", Cleveland Museum of Art. <em>Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine</em>. Vol. 48 no. 5, May/June 2008",
                "page_number": "Mentioned & reproduced: p. 10",
                "url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2008-05/page/10"
            }
        ],
        "url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/2003.6.1",
        "images": {
            "annotation": "",
            "web": {
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                "width": "566",
                "height": "900",
                "filesize": "176144",
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            "print": {
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        "alternate_images": [
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                },
                "date_created": "2026-04-20T11:39:33",
                "annotation": ""
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                    "width": "3259",
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                "date_created": "2005-08-26T19:57:07",
                "annotation": ""
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        ],
        "creditline": "Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund",
        "image_credit": null,
        "sketchfab_id": null,
        "sketchfab_url": null,
        "gallery_donor_text": "Maltz Family Foundation ArtLens Gallery",
        "athena_id": 163040,
        "creators": [
            {
                "id": 44231,
                "description": "Charles Meynier (French, 1768\u20131832)",
                "extent": null,
                "qualifier": null,
                "role": "artist",
                "biography": "Charles Meynier was a recipient of the Grand Prix de Rome in 1789 and became a member of the Acad\u00e9mie des Beaux-Arts in 1815. A history painter, he created the grand decoration for ceilings of the Louvre (1819 and 1822), and produced numerous pictures glorifying the Napoleonic legend, which for the most part remain in the ch\u00e2teau de Versailles. Through the assistance of his brother Meynier Saint-Phal, a famous actor of the Com\u00e9die Fran\u00e7aise who paid for his studies, the artist entered the atelier of the painter Fran\u00e7ois Andr\u00e9 Vincent (1746-1816), a principal rival of the master Jacques-Louis David. The studio in which Meynier received his training was known by the students of David as the atelier of the\"perruques,\" (the wigs) the name given to royalists or conservatives during that period.",
                "name_in_original_language": null,
                "birth_year": "1768",
                "death_year": "1832",
                "use_in_caption": true,
                "include_extent": false,
                "weight": 1
            }
        ],
        "legal_status": "accessioned",
        "accession_date": "2003-03-03T00:00:00",
        "sortable_date": 1800,
        "date_added_to_oa": null,
        "date_text": "1800",
        "collapse_artists": false,
        "on_loan": false,
        "recently_acquired": false,
        "record_type": "component",
        "conservation_statement": "Before entering the collection, this entire suite of five monumental paintings by Charles Meynier had numerous conservation issues, including pronounced discolored varnish, years of accumulated grime, and canvases that were detaching from their stretchers, creating large buckles along the edges. The CMA designed a four-year-long comprehensive conservation campaign to address these concerns, which involved removing the grime, reducing the discolored varnish, flattening buckles and undulations in the canvas, followed by inpainting mainly to compensate for pronounced traction cracking in the original paint layers. Traction cracking occurs when the top layers of paint dry faster than the underlayers, creating breaks in the top layers, revealing the underlying preparatory layers that were not intended to be seen. Horizontal cracking at regular intervals is present in each painting and is likely caused by rolling the canvases to transport them to the Castella chateau in Wallenreid, Switzerland, where the paintings remained until the CMA purchased them in 2003. After removal of the discolored, nearly brown varnish layers, nuanced, dynamic, and balanced color relationships were uncovered, as Meynier skillfully juxtaposed colors within the draperies of the muses. For example, in <em>Polyhymnia, the Muse of Eloquence</em>, Meynier places her soft gray-violet drapery next to a yellow orange drapery, using a darker violet tone at the edges of the folds to create volume. These two complimentary colors are beautifully balanced against each other. The exquisitely carved gold leaf frames are original to the paintings.",
        "has_conservation_images": true,
        "cover_accession_number": "2003.6",
        "is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
        "impression": null,
        "alternate_titles": [
            "Polymnia, Muse of Eloquence"
        ],
        "is_highlight": false,
        "updated_at": "2026-08-11 16:47:01.891000"
    }
}