{
"data": {
"id": 166682,
"accession_number": "2008.395",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Liberty, 1848\u201349. Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Millet (French, 1814\u20131875). Black chalk and pastel; sheet: 47.2 x 31.7 cm (18 9/16 x 12 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Muriel Butkin, 2008.395",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Liberty",
"creation_date": "1848\u201349",
"creation_date_earliest": 1848,
"creation_date_latest": 1849,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"France, 19th century"
],
"technique": "black chalk and pastel",
"support_materials": [
{
"description": "beige modern laid paper",
"watermarks": []
}
],
"department": "Drawings",
"collection": "DR - French",
"type": "Drawing",
"measurements": "Sheet: 47.2 x 31.7 cm (18 9/16 x 12 1/2 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"sheet": {
"height": 0.472,
"height_inch": 18,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.5625,
"width": 0.317,
"width_inch": 12,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.5
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [],
"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": [
{
"description": "Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge (before 1939).",
"opening_date": "1939-01-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Non-Dissenters: Fifth Exhibition Marking Our Tenth Anniversary. Shepherd Gallery, New York (November 1-December 31, 1976).",
"opening_date": "1976-11-01T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Quincy Adams Shaw [1825-1908], Boston, by descent within family",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "?-1908",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "Family of Quincy Adams Shaw, Boston",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1908-1939",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "(Parke-Bernet, New York, Nov. 24, 1939, no. 12)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1939",
"sortorder": 4
},
{
"description": "Beatrice H. Shore, New York, sold to Shepherd Gallery, New York",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "?-1976",
"sortorder": 5
},
{
"description": "(Shepherd Gallery, New York, sold to Muriel Butkin, Shaker Heights, OH)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1976-",
"sortorder": 6
},
{
"description": "Muriel Butkin [1916-2008], Shaker Heights, OH, by bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1976-2008",
"sortorder": 7
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "2008-",
"sortorder": 8
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "Liberty relates to Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Millet's entrance into the 1848 competition for an official painted figure representing the second French Republic. Millet did not win the competition and his painted Republic no longer exists, but this representation of a related concept\u2014liberty\u2014was inspired by his contest participation. He also drew allegories of the other two fundamental concepts in French Republicanism: equality and fraternity.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79997272"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-2008.395-liberty"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Parke Bernet Galleries, New York. Property of Robert Cluett, Jr., J. Theus Munds, John P. Grier, and Other Owners. November 24, 1939. Lot 12.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 3, no. 12",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Shepherd Gallery. Non-Dissenters Fifth Exhibition: One Hundred and Seventy French Nineteenth Century Drawings, Pastels and Watercolors. Exh. Cat. New York: Shepherd Gallery, 1976.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 130",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Masheck, Joseph, \"Current and Forthcoming Exhibitions: New York,\" Burlington Magazine 119, no. 889 (April 1977), 307-308.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 308",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Toussaint, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne. \"Le R\u00e9alisme de Courbet au service de la satire politique et de la propagande gouvernementale,\" Bulletin de la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de l'Histoire de l'Art fran\u00e7ais (1979), 233-244.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: 238, 244, no. 16",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Laughton, Bruce, The Drawings of Daumier and Millet. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 66; Reproduced: p. 67, fig. 5.19",
"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: cat. no. 35, p. 80-81; Reproduced: p. 81",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/2008.395",
"images": {
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"date_created": "2008-10-28T19:48:48",
"annotation": ""
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"creditline": "Bequest of Muriel Butkin",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
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"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 166682,
"creators": [
{
"id": 1667,
"description": "Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Millet (French, 1814\u20131875)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "Son of a wealthy farmer, Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Millet studied with a portrait painter from Cherbourg, Bon du Mouchel (1807-1846), himself a student of David (q.v.). Mouchel required his young apprentice to copy paintings in the museum in Cherbourg, where Millet had been sent to enter the studio of Lucien-Th\u00e9ophile Langlois (1803-1845), a former student of Gros (q.v.). Millet received a stipend from the city to move to Paris in 1837, enrolling in the \u00c9cole des Beaux-Arts in the studio of Delaroche (q.v.), where he met Couture (q.v.). Within two years he had left Delaroche, and his stipend was withdrawn. To earn a living, he executed pastels and small paintings in the style of Jean Antoine Watteau (1684-1729) and Fran\u00e7ois Boucher (1703-1770). In 1839 the first painting that Millet sent to the Salon, Saint Anne Instructing the Virgin, was refused. The following year one portrait was accepted at the Salon, and Millet spent the winter in Cherbourg where he could make a living painting portraits. After his marriage to Pauline-Virginie Ono, he returned to Paris, painting various subjects but finding little success. He met Th\u00e9odore Rousseau (q.v.) and Diaz de la Pe\u00f1a (q.v.) and was introduced to Durand-Ruel, who purchased some of his works, at that point mainly pastoral scenes and nudes. In the late 1840s Millet began to devote himself to painting peasants and rural life, subjects that automatically had political overtones in the light of the 1848 revolutions. In 1849 he settled in Barbizon, continuing his depictions of the peasantry. He achieved some financial security thanks to Alfred Sensier, who supplied him with materials and sold his paintings. At the Salon of 1850-51 Millet exhibited The Sower (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), which received a great deal of attention. Although the conservatives accused Millet of overemphasizing the poverty of the peasants, the republican and leftist movement hailed the painting as a dignified representation of the working class. Millet claimed to be interested solely in the biblical allusions of his subject, yet he seemed to persist in painting the poorest peasants at the worst tasks. The final ten years of his life were successful ones. A retrospective of his work at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1867 solidified his reputation, and the following year he received the Legion of Honor. His work was influential for generations of artists.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1814",
"death_year": "1875",
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"weight": 1
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"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "2009-03-02T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1848,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1848\u201349",
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"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
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"alternate_titles": [],
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"updated_at": "2026-05-29 08:36:44.350000"
}
}