{
"data": {
"id": 166681,
"accession_number": "2008.394",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Head of a Boy Singing (Study for Music), c. 1898. Luc-Olivier Merson (French, 1846\u20131920). Black, white, and red chalk with stumping, pricked for transfer; sheet: 39.6 x 27.2 cm (15 9/16 x 10 11/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Muriel Butkin, 2008.394",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Head of a Boy Singing (Study for Music)",
"creation_date": "c. 1898",
"creation_date_earliest": 1893,
"creation_date_latest": 1903,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"France, 19th century"
],
"technique": "black, white, and red chalk with stumping, pricked for transfer",
"support_materials": [
{
"description": "light brown wove paper",
"watermarks": []
}
],
"department": "Drawings",
"collection": "DR - French",
"type": "Drawing",
"measurements": "Sheet: 39.6 x 27.2 cm (15 9/16 x 10 11/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"sheet": {
"height": 0.396,
"width": 0.272
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "signed, center right, in black chalk: L. O. M; lower left, in graphite: 33 40 ",
"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"
},
{
"id": 203744,
"title": "Themes and Variations: Musical Drawings and Prints",
"description": "Themes and Variations: Musical Drawings and Prints. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 25-May 17, 2015).",
"opening_date": "2015-01-25T00:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Visages du dix-neuvi\u00e8me si\u00e8cle, Galerie Jacques Fischer-Chantal Kiener, Paris (December 1 - 15, 1977).",
"opening_date": "1977-12-01T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "(Galerie Jacques Fischer-Chantal Kiener, Paris, sold to Muriel Butkin, Shaker Heights, OH)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "?-1977",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "Muriel Butkin [1916-2008], Shaker Heights, OH, by bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1977-2008",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "2008-",
"sortorder": 3
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "The face of the boy in this drawing is pricked extensively so that the image could be transferred directly to the final painting for which it was a study. The two works differ only in the addition of a hat on the boy's head in the final work.",
"description": "This sheet was a preparatory study for the face of a singing boy who appears near the center of Music, a mural decorating the left grand staircase at the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre National de l\u2019Op\u00e9ra-Comique in Paris. Drawn from life with exquisite naturalism, Luc-Olivier Merson captured the sitter\u2019s youthful beauty with such clarity that the purity of the boy\u2019s voice seems to emanate from the drawing.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79997269"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-2008.394-head-of-a-boy-singin"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Visages du dix-neuvie\u0300me sie\u0300cle. Exh. Cat. Paris: Galerie Jacques Fischer-Chantal Kiener, 1977.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: no. 28",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Le Moyen-A\u0302ge et les peintres franc\u0327ais de la fin du XIXe sie\u0300cle: Jean-Paul Laurens et ses contemporains. Exh. Cat. Cagnes-sur-Mer: Ch\u00e2teau-Muse\u0301e de Cagnes-sur-Mer, 1980.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 65, under no. 42",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Foster, Carter E., Sylvain Bellenger, and Patrick Shaw Cable. French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: pp. 128-29, 144, no. 59; Reproduced: p. 129",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/2008.394",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2008.394/2008.394_web.jpg",
"width": "764",
"height": "893",
"filesize": "128652",
"filename": "2008.394_web.jpg"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2008.394/2008.394_print.jpg",
"width": "2910",
"height": "3400",
"filesize": "1863206",
"filename": "2008.394_print.jpg"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2008.394/2008.394_full.tif",
"width": "3212",
"height": "3752",
"filesize": "36178676",
"filename": "2008.394_full.tif"
}
},
"alternate_images": [
{
"date_created": "2008-10-28T20:01:49",
"annotation": "",
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/alternate/2008.394/2008.394_alt0_web.jpg",
"width": "842",
"height": "893",
"filesize": "533577"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/alternate/2008.394/2008.394_alt0_print.jpg",
"width": "3207",
"height": "3400",
"filesize": "7866174"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/alternate/2008.394/2008.394_alt0_full.tif",
"width": "4716",
"height": "5000",
"filesize": "70758372"
}
}
],
"creditline": "Bequest of Muriel Butkin",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 166681,
"creators": [
{
"id": 9567,
"description": "Luc-Olivier Merson (French, 1846\u20131920)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1846",
"death_year": "1920",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "2009-03-02T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1893,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "c. 1898",
"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 00:03:38.865000"
}
}