1943.269: The Chimera

Identification and Creation

Object Number

1943.269

People

Gustave Moreau, French (Paris 1826 - 1898 Paris)

Title

The Chimera

Classification

Paintings

Work Type

painting

Date

1867

Culture

French

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/230201

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Oil on panel

Dimensions

33.02 x 27.31 cm (13 x 10 3/4 in.)

Inscriptions and Marks

• Signed: l.l.: GM [monogram] / Gustave Moreau - 1867
• inscription: Inscribed on back of stretcher: Top slat: Chimere. Second slat: à Monsieur Bocquet.

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

Gustave Moreau, 1867, sold; to Bocquet. Drouin. Willy Blumenthal, Paris, (by 1906-1935) sold; [through Martin Birnbaum]; to Grenville L. Winthrop, 1935-1943) bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1943.


Notes:
Bocquet paid 2,000 ff.
WIlly Blumenthal lent this to the 1906 exhibition.
Seligmann Gallery Archives record a visit to Willy Blumenthal on March 19, 1935, and describe a painting by Moreau: Centaure d'elançant dans le vide, une femme s'accrochée à son cou.
Winthrop paid Fr 35,000

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

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

Accession Year

1943

Object Number

1943.269

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.

The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.

Publication History

• Ary Renan, Gustave Moreau, Gazette des Beaux-Arts (Paris, France, 1900), pp. 105-106, repr.
• Exposition Gustave Moreau au profit des oeuvres du travail et des pauvres honteux, exh. cat., Galerie Georges Petit (Paris, France, 1906), cat. no. 21
• Pierre-Louis Mathieu, Gustave Moreau: with a catalogue of the finished paintings watercolors, and drawings, New York Graphic Society (Boston, MA, 1976), no. 87, repr. in b/w p. 100, p. 310
• Jean Selz, Gustave Moreau, Flammarion (Paris, France, 1978), repr. in color p. 29
• Jean Selz, Gustave Moreau, Crown Publications (New York, NY, 1979), p. 51; color repr. p. 29
• Edgar Peters Bowron, European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum: A Summary Catalogue including Paintings in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 121; repr. as no. 316
• Pierre-Louis Mathieu, Tout l'oeuvre peint de Gustave Moreau, Flammarion (Paris, France, 1991), no. 121, p. 89
• Willard Bohn, Apollinaire, Visual Poetry, and Art Criticism, Associated University Presses/Lewisburg Bucknell University Press (London and Toronto, 1993), repr. in b/w opposite p. 130; mentioned p. 130
• Pierre-Louis Mathieu, Gustave Moreau, Flammarion (Paris, France, 1994), pp. 98-99, repr. p. 101
• Gustave Moreau: Gyusutavu Moro, exh. cat., Nihon Hoso Kyokai (Tokyo, Japan, 1995), p. 178, repr. b/w
• Pierre-Louis Mathieu, Gustave Moreau: Monographie et nouveau catalogue de l'oeuvre achevé, ACR Édition (Paris, France, 1998), no. 104, p. 305, repr.
• Geneviève Lacambre, Gustave Moreau: between Epic and Dream, exh. cat., The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL, 1999), p. 264
• 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), pp. 154-155, cat. #43, color repr.
• 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), no. 93, pp. 236-238, repr. in 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. 93, pp. 246-248, repr. in color
• Dominique Cordellier, Louis-Antoine Prat, and Carel van Tuyll van Serooskerken, ed., Maîtres du dessin européen du XVIe au XXe siècle: la collection Georges Pébereau, exh. cat., Musée du Louvre Éditions and Somogy Éditions d'Art (Paris, 2009), under cat. no. 60, p. 158
• Peter Cooke, Gustave Moreau: History Painting, Spirituality and Symbolism, Yale University Press (U.S.) (New Haven and London, 2014), repr. p. 128 as fig. 81
• Gustave Moreau (Tokyo, 2019), p. 44. 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
• Moreau and Monticelli, Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, 05/13/1960 - 06/08/1960
• Pre-Raphaelite and Early French Symbolist Art in the Fogg Collections, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 01/16/1973 - 02/25/1973
• Sublimations: Art and Sensuality in the 19th Century, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 07/13/1996 - 07/21/2002
• 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
• For Students of Art and Lovers of Beauty: Highlights from the Collection of Grenville L. Winthrop, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/16/2004

Subjects and Contexts

• Google Art Project
• Collection Highlights

Verification Level