Portrait of a Woman at a Harpsichord

Cleveland Museum of Art

Portrait of a Woman at a Harpsichord

François DumontLinkedCulture matchlcp-b42f75515469

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

We do not know the identity of this elegantly dressed woman who plays a sonata on the harpsichord. There are two copies of this miniature that are attributed to other artists (Peter Adolphe Hall and Marie Christine Campana), and both identify the sitter as Sophie Arnould, a highly acclaimed French soprano. Dumont was fond of using objects in the space around the sitter to express her character—a common practice in portraits—so it is possible that this woman was a musician. To play a musical instrument well was considered an essential feminine accomplishment for an aristocratic woman during the eighteenth century, and like her fashionable dress, communicates the sitter's grace and charm to the viewer. This miniature was probably painted around 1788, on the eve of the French revolution, and the year that Sophie retired from the stage at the age of 48. Unknown sitters are oftentimes later identified as persons who were well-known or fashionable during the period when the work was painted, and it is difficult to know conclusively.

LinkedCulture assembled this text from several fields of Cleveland Museum of Art’s catalogue record, so it is not the museum’s own wording as published. See “How LinkedCulture maps this record” below.

Cleveland Museum of Art’s catalogue record

Medium
watercolor on ivory in a 19th-century stamped gold and gilt metal frame
Credit Line
The Edward B. Greene Collection
Type of artwork
Portrait Miniature
Department
European Painting and Sculpture

Also in Cleveland Museum of Art’s record. The museum’s own label for these fields has not been confirmed yet, so each is named by its field in the museum’s data.

creation_date
c. 1788

Taken from LinkedCulture’s stored copy of Cleveland Museum of Art’s record. A fresh capture of the museum’s own record has not been made for this object yet.

What the image shows

A woman in a historical costume plays a keyboard instrument.

Generated by LinkedCulture from the photograph alone, without the museum’s catalogue text (Qwen/Qwen2.5-VL-7B-Instruct), and not yet reviewed by a person. It describes the picture, not the object’s history, and it is not part of the museum’s record.

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The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata. The fields above are the museum’s, under its own labels. LinkedCulture’s derived fields are listed separately below and marked as ours.

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Open this page QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.Q5stKtx3FAAHcmxz.fd5EDjyU_dMs48Yer_g9Iyoe78-Py_FPBee2qczvC9xk3vh3c2iHCPf91MHoYJbXMfbSq9nstYl9WkatSp612qPXIYrO5Z_jMY_i9R8x1iolexPUFXPeEhrEPSxkjtftEMin_18ib9aoRpBL4H5V5FyWmWAmk1Vrhnr24W59FUjZCguwkQYwzRbqN3bB0p9bpgRm7T3qjFPOxJktt2zUbGuHlMlBuVMy-4SMOYB8bvCkLqQUj5BEQq8JKdr0RYNB5soFLD2iRbfteecsVRpQ9vW3gyfdVrrhfA6_sHHw-7H8mYEuSgSee at Cleveland Museum of Art QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.h0LZxy70vORZHbfU.mGdgcV5QhbWpSpjLc__Q4Qqg15Cx00jnsRTXgC7U8XEwoHEH_C1baJMq7tv-uDc0OjAKc-N6ivt3Zm28cWY4rLYxkXvfokW5mNGCX7rOdbgEiqJe06O2OC0BqvGRmP9Mm1U39L83QWm9ihPfejq5NV5hlaTbkWOnRymBEut5hI0GmHVY87BBydV7SuQ_JSwKTPJRzvU0e0EVu4Bq2YrwPhezlwiv4G21QXJOUXS82V94TBW5Skg5tVtkT6tIPfOTpv_dx9XIvJmFmxDZmgBJ6Mj_SZw6EcWzgZkIjdXXKqE
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How LinkedCulture maps this record

To search objects from different museums together, LinkedCulture reads each museum’s record into a common set of fields. The values below are LinkedCulture’s, under LinkedCulture’s names. They are not Cleveland Museum of Art’s wording; the museum’s own record is shown above under its own labels.

Object ID
121267
Object Type
Portrait Miniature
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Type of artwork” · copied as is
Creator
François Dumont
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creators (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field · Artist-role creator's description with life dates removed.
Culture
France, 18th century
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Culture” · copied as is
Medium
watercolor on ivory in a 19th-century stamped gold and gilt metal frame
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Medium” · copied as is · Cleveland's 'technique' field holds materials.
Department
European Painting and Sculpture
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Department” · copied as is
Tags
  • male
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field tags (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · combined from several museum fields
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field artists_tags (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · combined from several museum fields
Credit Line
The Edward B. Greene Collection
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Credit Line” · copied as is
Date
c. 1788
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creation_date (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · copied as is
Begin Year
1785
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creation_date_earliest (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · copied as is
End Year
1789
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creation_date_latest (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · copied as is

The museum’s own record has not been captured for this object yet, so the museum fields shown above are limited to values LinkedCulture stored unchanged.

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