{
"data": {
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"accession_number": "2003.6.5",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Clio, Muse of History, 1800. Charles Meynier (French, 1768\u20131832). Oil on canvas; framed: 290 x 192.4 x 7 cm (114 3/16 x 75 3/4 x 2 3/4 in.); unframed: 273 x 176 cm (107 1/2 x 69 5/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund, 2003.6.5",
"current_location": "201 French Neoclassical Painting & Sculpture",
"title": "Clio, Muse of History",
"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": "Framed: 290 x 192.4 x 7 cm (114 3/16 x 75 3/4 x 2 3/4 in.); Unframed: 273 x 176 cm (107 1/2 x 69 5/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"framed": {
"height": 2.9,
"height_inch": 114,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.1875,
"width": 1.924,
"width_inch": 75,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.75,
"depth": 0.07,
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"height_inch": 107,
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"width": 1.76,
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"state_of_the_work": null,
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"inscriptions": [],
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},
"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,
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"did_you_know": "Clio's name is derived from a Greek word meaning \"to recount\" or \"to celebrate.\"",
"description": "Clio, the Greek muse of history, is the daughter of Zeus and Titaness Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory. Clio is depicted here writing and surrounded by objects associated with preserving the memory of historical figures and events: busts, reliefs, and sculptures. This painting belongs to a cycle of works commissioned by businessman Fran\u00e7ois Boyer-Fonfr\u00e9de for his home in Toulouse.",
"external_resources": {
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"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60479840"
],
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"citations": [
{
"citation": "Bellenger, Sylvain. \"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: cover, p. 5, p. 7",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2004-01/page/n3"
},
{
"citation": "\"Major Acquisitions 2000-2005.\" Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 45, no. 6 (July/August 2005): 6-19.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 13",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2005-06/page/12/mode/2up"
},
{
"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. 11",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2008-05/page/10/mode/2up"
},
{
"citation": "Wat, Pierre. \"Procession des-ismes ou parade des individus? Comment s'ecrit l'histoire de l'art du X\"IX siecle.\" In L'art du XIX siecle: l'heure de la modernite,1789-1914. 20-75. Paris: Citadelles & Mazenod, 2016.",
"page_number": "20-21",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Wat, Pierre. \"Procession des '-ismes' ou parade des individus? Comment s'ecrit l'histoire de l'art du XIX siecle.\" In L'art du XIXe sie\u0300cle: l'heure de la modernite\u0301 1789-1914. Bertrand Tillier, 21-76. Paris: Citadelles & Mazenod, 2016.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 20",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Muse\u0301e du Grand Sie\u0300cle, and Fre\u0301de\u0301rique Lanoe\u0308. La curiosite\u0301 a\u0300 l'\u0153uvre: dessins de la donation Pierre Rosenberg. Paris : Le Passage, 2022.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 74, fig. 31a",
"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": "Sarah S. and Alexander M. Cutler Gallery",
"athena_id": 163044,
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"id": 44231,
"description": "Charles Meynier (French, 1768\u20131832)",
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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",
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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,
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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, draped, 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 was 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 Clio, the Muse of History, Meynier places her muted yellow costume next to a soft gray-violet drapery. These two complimentary colors are beautifully balanced against each other. Upon closer looking, one can even see violet shadows within the folds of the yellow drapery and faint yellow, bridging the two colors. 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,
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"updated_at": "2026-05-06 22:17:44.957000"
}
}