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"accession_number": "2003.6.2",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Erato, Muse of Lyrical Poetry, 1800. Charles Meynier (French, 1768\u20131832). Oil on canvas; overall: 273 x 176 cm (107 1/2 x 69 5/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund, 2003.6.2",
"current_location": "219 19th Century European",
"title": "Erato, Muse of Lyrical Poetry",
"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: 273 x 176 cm (107 1/2 x 69 5/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 2.73,
"height_inch": 107,
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},
"state_of_the_work": null,
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"inscriptions": [],
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{
"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": [],
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"description": "Erato, the muse of lyric and erotic poetry, is often depicted with a golden arrow received from Eros or Cupid, a sign of the emotion that inspires her.",
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],
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"citations": [
{
"citation": "Bellenger, Sylvain, Paul J. and Edith Ingalls Vignos Jr. \"Magnificent Muses\", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 44 no. 01, January 2004",
"page_number": "Mentioned & reproduced: 6-7",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2004-01/page/n5"
},
{
"citation": "Bracken Sparks, Amy, \"Disappearing Act\", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 48 no. 5, May/June 2008",
"page_number": "Mentioned & reproduced: p. 10",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2008-05/page/10"
},
{
"citation": "Meynier, Charles, and Isabelle Mayer-Michalon. Meynier's Masterpiece: The Farewell of Telemachus and Eucharis : an Important Rediscovery from the Salon of 1800, London : Daniel Katz Gallery, 2019. 26.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 26-27, fig. 13.",
"url": ""
}
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"creditline": "Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
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"gallery_donor_text": "Norma and Alfred Lerner Gallery",
"athena_id": 163041,
"creators": [
{
"id": 44231,
"description": "Charles Meynier (French, 1768\u20131832)",
"extent": null,
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"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,
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"weight": 1
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"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,
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"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. At some point, while in the Wallenreid chateau, likely for prudish reasons, the Castella family had an artist paint a drapery over Cupid. Fortunately, the lead white\u2013containing paint of the overpainted drapery was applied over top of an old varnish layer. This barrier of thick, brittle natural resin varnish allowed for the careful and painstaking mechanical removal of the overpainted drapery, revealing the artist\u2019s intended composition. 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": [],
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"updated_at": "2026-06-10 19:47:14.649000"
}
}