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"current_location": "219 19th Century European",
"title": "Apollo, God of Light, Eloquence, Poetry, and the Fine Arts with Urania, Muse of Astronomy",
"creation_date": "1798",
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"measurements": "Overall: 275 x 235 cm (108 1/4 x 92 1/2 in.)",
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"citation": "Bellenger, Sylvain. \"Magnificent Muses\", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 44 no. 01, January 2004",
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{
"citation": "Bracken Sparks, Amy, \"Disappearing Act.\" Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 48 no. 5 (May/June 2008): 10-12.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 12",
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"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.",
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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. The oversized format for Apollo, God of Light, Eloquence, Poetry, and the Fine Arts with Urania, Muse of Astronomy, comprises two canvases that are vertically seamed together (right of the central axis) to form one large canvas. The exquisitely carved gold leaf frames are original to the paintings.",
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"updated_at": "2026-06-10 19:47:15.740000"
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