{
"data": {
"id": 166669,
"accession_number": "2008.383",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Liberty, c. 1865\u201375. Gustave Dor\u00e9 (French, 1832\u20131883). Brush and brown wash and gray and white gouache with graphite; sheet: 46.5 x 32.9 cm (18 5/16 x 12 15/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Muriel Butkin, 2008.383",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Liberty",
"creation_date": "c. 1865\u201375",
"creation_date_earliest": 1860,
"creation_date_latest": 1880,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"France, 19th century"
],
"technique": "Brush and brown wash and gray and white gouache with graphite",
"support_materials": [
{
"description": "beige wove paper",
"watermarks": []
}
],
"department": "Drawings",
"collection": "DR - French",
"type": "Drawing",
"measurements": "Sheet: 46.5 x 32.9 cm (18 5/16 x 12 15/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"sheet": {
"height": 0.465,
"width": 0.329
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "lower right, in graphite: 186x48x63; stamped, lower right, in red ink: ATELIER / GDORE [circled]",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 187360,
"title": "French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin",
"description": "French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26-October 28, 2001); Dahesh Museum of Art (February 19-May 18, 2002).",
"opening_date": "2001-08-26T00:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Estate of Gustave Dor\u00e9 [1832-1883, L. 681a]",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [
"Stamped at lower right, in red ink.
"
],
"date": "by 1875-1883",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "(Hotel Drouot, Dor\u00e9 studio sale, Paris, April 13, 1885, no. 96)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [
"As \"La Libert\u00e9. Dessin au pinceau avec rehauts de blanc. Haut., 45 cent.; larg., 32 cent.\"
"
],
"date": "1885",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "(Hotel Drouot, Paris, June 22, 1989, no. 15)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [
"As \"La Libert\u00e9 brisant ses cha\u00eenes\"
"
],
"date": "1989",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "(Galerie Jacques Fischer-Chantal Kiener, Paris, sold to Muriel Butkin, Shaker Heights, OH)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1989-1990",
"sortorder": 4
},
{
"description": "Muriel Butkin [1916-2008], Shaker Heights, OH, by bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1990-2008",
"sortorder": 5
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "2008",
"sortorder": 6
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"description": "Gustave Dor\u00e9 is best known for his skill as a draftsman (often seen in book illustrations), as well as for his sense of the fantastic and visionary. In the present drawing, his fluid washes and flowing lines of white add to the dramatic scene of a liberating angel breaking chains. The drawing relates to Dor\u00e9's Defense of Paris (Memories of 1870), which treated an event from the recent Franco-Prussian War with a figure representing Liberty. A major difference between the painting and the drawing is that Dor\u00e9 represented soldiers in contemporary uniforms in the painting, but in the drawing of Liberty, he conceived a broader theme in which crowns and medieval costumes evoke an earlier time.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79997241"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-2008.383-liberty"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Hotel Drouot, Paris. Catalogue Des Tableaux...son atelier par feu Gustave Dore\u0301. April 13, 1885. Lot 96.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 20",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "De Grazia, Diane. \"Drawings in Cleveland: The Evolution of a Collection.\" In Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1-15. Diane De Grazia and Carter E. Foster, eds. Exh. Cat. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in Association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: fig. 10, pp. 10-11",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "De Grazia, Diane. \"The Evolution of a Collection: Drawings in Cleveland.\" Master Drawings 38, no. 3 (2000): 249-60.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 258",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "DeGrazia, Diane and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 11",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Foster, Carter E., Sylvain Bellenger, and Patrick Shaw Cable. French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 47, pp. 104-105",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Zafran, Eric, ed. Fantasy and Faith: The Art of Gustave Dore\u0301. New York: Dahesh Museum of Art, 2007.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 40, p. 180; Reproduced: fig. 35, p. 40",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/2008.383",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
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"alternate_images": [
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"creditline": "Bequest of Muriel Butkin",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 166669,
"creators": [
{
"id": 13353,
"description": "Gustave Dor\u00e9 (French, 1832\u20131883)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "French illustrator, painter and sculptor, best known for his illustrations of epic literature, such as those by Dante, Cervantes, Hugo, and Milton, as well as contemporary texts, such as those by Balzac. In 1872, he began to record the conditions of London slums. These engravings are rich in dramatic detail and show a harsh and nightmarish world. His work influenced that of Van Gough and later, the Symbolists.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1832",
"death_year": "1883",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "2009-03-02T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1860,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "c. 1865\u201375",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"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": "2026-03-27 00:08:38.342000"
}
}