1943.392: The Sirens

Identification and Creation

Object Number

1943.392

People

Gustave Moreau, French (Paris 1826 - 1898 Paris)

Title

The Sirens

Classification

Drawings

Work Type

drawing

Date

1882

Culture

French

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/297873

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Watercolor and gouache, brown ink, and black chalk on cream wove paper

Dimensions

32.8 x 20.9 cm (12 15/16 x 8 1/4 in.)

Inscriptions and Marks

• inscription: lr: Sirens

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

Sold by the artist to Édouard Saisset, November 9, 1881 (Fr 2,000; with "Eve"); purchased from him by Charles Hayem, May 12, 1882; purchased from him by Alfred Baillehache (Fr 4,000); Galerie Brame, Paris, purchased from them by (?) Gillet, Lyon 1913 (Fr 7,000); bought back by Brame, 1914; acquired from Scott and Fowles, New York, by Grenville L. Winthrop, October 1923 ($1,350); his bequest to the Fogg Art Museum, 1943.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop

Accession Year

1943

Object Number

1943.392

Division

European and American Art

Contact

am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu

Permissions

THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.

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Publication History

• Ary Renan, "Gustave Moreau", Gazette des Beaux-Arts (May 1886), ser. 2, 33, pp. 377-94, pg. 378
• Paul Leprieur, "Gustave Moreau et son Oeuvre", L'Artiste (March - June 1889), 59, no. 1, pg. 32, tipped in pl. facing p. 32
• Ary Renan, Gustave Moreau, Gazette des Beaux-Arts (Paris, France, 1900), pg. 102, repr.
• Exposition Gustave Moreau au profit des oeuvres du travail et des pauvres honteux, exh. cat., Galerie Georges Petit (Paris, France, 1906), cat. no. 6
• Pierre-Louis Mathieu, Gustave Moreau: with a catalogue of the finished paintings watercolors, and drawings, New York Graphic Society (Boston, MA, 1976), no. 276, repr.
• Marjorie B. Cohn, Wash and Gouache: A Study of the Development of the Materials of Watercolor, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, 1977), p. 69, cat. no. 44 p. 105
• Jean Selz, Gustave Moreau, Flammarion (Paris, France, 1978), pg. 60, repr.
• Jean Selz, Gustave Moreau, Crown Publications (New York, NY, 1979), color repr. p. 60
• Toni Stooss and Pierre-Louis Mathieu, Gustave Moreau, Symboliste, exh. cat., Kunsthaus Zürich (Zurich, Switzerland, 1986), p. 200, under no. 80
• Pierre-Louis Mathieu, Le Musée Gustave Moreau, Editions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, France, 1986), p. 57
• Eleanor Brown, Maiden Speech, Bloodaxe Books (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, 1996), color repr. on cover (paperback)
• New History of World Art, vol. 24, Shogakukan Inc. (Tokyo, Japan, 1996), fig. 4, p. 40
• Pierre-Louis Mathieu and Geneviève Lacambre, The Gustave Moreau Museum, Musée Gustave Moreau/Editions de la Réunion des musées nationaux (Paris, France, 1997), p. 71
• Jean Lorrain and Gustave Moreau, Corespondance et poèmes, Réunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, 1998), pp. 26, 28-29
• Geneviève Lacambre, Gustave Moreau, 1826-1898, exh. cat., Réunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, France, 1998), p. 269
• Pierre-Louis Mathieu, Gustave Moreau: L'assembleur de rêves (Courbevoie, 1998), pg. 123, repr.
• Pierre-Louis Mathieu, Gustave Moreau: Monographie et nouveau catalogue de l'oeuvre achevé, ACR Édition (Paris, France, 1998), no. 308, repr., also repr. p. 156 (color)
• Geneviève Lacambre, Gustave Moreau: between Epic and Dream, exh. cat., The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL, 1999), pg. 269
• Sarah Carr-Gomm, The Secret Language of Art, Duncan Baird Publishers (London, England, 2001), pp. 66, 253
• Chikashi Kitazaki and Mina Oya, ed., Between Reality and Dreams: Nineteenth Century British and French Art from the Winthrop Collection of the Fogg Art Museum, exh. cat., National Museum of Western Art (Ueno, 2002), cat. no. 44, repr. (color)
• Vincent Pomarède, "La Collection Winthrop: A la recherche de la beauté pure", L'Estampille/L'Objet d'art (April 2003), no. 379, pp. 34-45, p. 40
• Stephan Wolohojian, ed., A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press (U.S.) (New York, 2003), cat. no. 97, repr. (color)
• Stephan Wolohojian, Ingres, Burne-Jones, Whistler, Renoir... La Collection Grenville L. Winthrop, exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and Réunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, France, 2003), no. 97, repr.
• Natasha Grigorian, European Symbolism: In Search of Myth (1860-1910), ed. Patrick McGuinness, Peter Lang (Bern, 2009), repr. as ill. 16
• Ewa Lajer-Burcharth and Elizabeth M. Rudy, ed., Drawing: The Invention of a Modern Medium, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 199-200, 285, repr. p. 198 as fig. 4
• Gustave Moreau (Tokyo, 2019), pp. 46-47. repr.

Exhibition History

• Exposition Gustave Moreau au profit des oeuvres du travail et des pauvres honteux, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 01/01/1906 - 12/31/1906
• Wash and Gouache: A Study of the Development of the Materials of Watercolor, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 05/12/1977 - 06/22/1977
• Between Reality and Dreams: Nineteenth Century British and French Art from the Winthrop Collection of the Fogg Art Museum, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 09/14/2002 - 12/08/2002
• A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, Lyon, 03/15/2003 - 05/26/2003; National Gallery, London, 06/25/2003 - 09/14/2003; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 10/23/2003 - 01/25/2004
• Drawing: The Invention of a Modern Medium, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/21/2017 - 05/07/2017

Verification Level