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
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
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- 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
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