Cleveland Museum of Art

Fountain of Venus

François BoucherLinkedCulture matchlcp-8b3762df2461

Date: 1756
Medium: oil on canvas
Culture: France, 18th century
Department: European Painting and Sculpture
Institution: Cleveland Museum of Art
Object ID: 149663

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

Lighthearted, erotic decorative schemes remained popular among the French aristocracy throughout the 1700s. In this painting, part of the playfulness comes from the way Boucher painted some of the figures in gray, as if made of stone, while the others are fully human. The artist toyed with the boundaries of painting and sculpture, as well as fiction and reality.The original purpose of this painting remains unclear. While it may have been exhibited as an independent work of art, it probably served initially as a preliminary design for a tapestry.

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Provenance & credit

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Credit line: The Thomas L. Fawick Memorial Collection
Provenance: Until 1934: Baron Edmond de Rothschild [1845-1934], Paris, by descent to his son, Maurice de Rothschild | 1934-1940: Maurice de Rothschild [1881-1957], Paris, confiscated by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg | 1940-: In possession of the Nazis | Until 1974: Rothschild Family, to P. & D. Colnaghi | 1974-1979: (P. & D. Colnaghi, London, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) | 1979-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH