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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.890
People
Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, French (Cluny 1758 - 1823 Paris)
Title
The Genius of Liberty and Wisdom
Other Titles
Original Language Title: Le Génie de la Liberté et la Sagesse
Alternate Title: L'Amour et la Sagesse
Alternate Title: Love and Wisdom
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
c. 1791
Culture
French
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/297761

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Black crayon, graphite and white gouache on cream antique laid paper mounted to commercially prepared board
Dimensions
32 x 17 cm (12 5/8 x 6 11/16 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Duc de Rivoli; his sale, Me Petit Laneuville, "expert," Paris, April 18-19, 1834, no. 60 (as "L'Amour admirant le buste de la Sagesse"); M.G. . . (per illegible inscription on back of cardboard support); Pierre-Jules Mène, by 1872; his son-in-law Auguste Nicholas Cain, by 1884; his son Georges Cain, Paris, by 1900; Mme Georges Can, by 1922; Cain sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 9-10, 1939, no. 68 (as "Le Génie de la Liberté ou La Sagesse"); acquired through Martin Birnbaum by Grenville L. Winthrop, April 1939 (Fr 20,000); 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
1943.890
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Anonymous, Explicatiön et critique impartiale de toutes les peintures, sculptures, gravures, dessins, etc ..., du Croissant (Paris, 1791), pg. 54 (wrongly attributed to the painter Chéry)
  • Anonymous, La Béquille de Voltaire au salon, première promenade : (Paris, 1791 (year III)), pg. 25
  • J. Renouvier, Histoire de l'art pendant la révolution considéré principalement dans les estampes (2 vols.), Vve. J. Renouard (Paris, 1863), pp. 11, 98
  • Charles Clément, Prud'hon; sa vie, ses oeuvres et sa correspondance, Didier et cie. (Paris, 1872), pp. 206, 209 n. 1, 214-15
  • Edmond de Goncourt, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, dessine et grave de P. P. Prud'hon, Rapilly (Paris, France, 1876), pp. 151-52
  • Les maîtres du dessin (1900-1902), vol. 2 (1901), pl. 87 (photogravure by J. Chauvet "Sophia")
  • Jean Guiffrey, L'oeuvre de P. P. Prud'hon, A. Colin (Paris, France, 1924), pg. 139, no. 378
  • Samuel Sachs II, "Prud'hon's 'L'Union de l'Amour et de l'Amitié: A Neo-Classical Allegory", Minneapolis Institute of Art Bulletin (Minneapolis, 1965), 54, pg. 13, fig. 1, facing pg. 5
  • James H. Slayman, "The Drawings of Pierre-Paul Prud'hon: A Critical Study" (1970), University of Wisconsin, Madison, pp. 18-21, 283, pl. 10
  • Nicole Levis-Godechot, "Prud'hon Jacobin", Bulletin d'Histoire de la Revolution Française; Années 1982-83 (Paris, 1985), pp. 92-94, repr.
  • Jean-François Heim, Claire Béraud, and Phillipe Heim, Les Salons de Peinture de la Révolution française (1789-1799), C.A.C. S.A.R.L. Edition (Paris, France, 1989), pp. 314-15, repr.
  • Agnes Mongan, David to Corot: French Drawings in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1996), cat. no. 294, repr.
  • John Elderfield and Robert Gordon, The Language of the Body: Drawings by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1996), repr. p. 14; pp. 17, 21
  • Elizabeth Menon, "Pierre-Paul Prud'hon's Union of Love and Friendship Reconsidered", Gazette des Beaux-Arts (November 1997), p. 158-159, repr. fig. 3
  • Elizabeth Guffey, "Prud'hon et le cercle bourguignon à Rome", Pierre-Paul Prud'hon: actes du colloque organisé au musée du Louvre par le service culturel, le 17 novembre 1997, ed. Sylvain Laveissière, Documentation Française (Paris, (1997) 2001), pp. 87, 90, 107, fig. 15
  • Nicole Levis-Godechot, La Jeunesse de Pierre-Paul Prud'hon (1758-1796): Recherches d'iconographie et de symbolique, Léonce Laget (Paris, France, 1997), p. 109, repr. fig. 47
  • John Elderfield, La poésie du corps: dessins de Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, Editions de La Martinière (Paris, France, 1997), repr. p. 14; pp. 17, 21
  • Sylvain Laveissière, Pierre-Paul Prud'hon [Prud'hon ou le rêve du bonheur], exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art / Harry N. Abrams, Inc. [Réunion des Musées Nationaux] (New York, NY and Paris, France, 1997), under no. 23, fig. 23a
  • Sylvain Laveissière, Prud'hon ou le rêve du bonheur, exh. cat., Réunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, France, 1997), under no. 23, fig. 23a
  • Sylvain Laveissière, Prud'hon: Le Cabinet des Dessins, Flammarion (Paris, France, 1997), p. 22 and color repr. p. 23
  • Alvin L. Clark, Jr., "Un grand collectionneur américain de dessins français: Grenville L. Winthrop et les oeuvres de Pierre-Paul Prud'hon au Fogg Art Museum", Pierre-Paul Prud'hon: actes du colloque organisé au musée du Louvre par le service culturel, le 17 novembre 1997, La documentation française, Musée du Louvre (Paris, 2001), pp. 177-202, p. 182, fig. 8, repr.
  • Elizabeth Guffey, Drawing an Elusive Line: The Art of Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, University of Delaware Press/ Associated University Presses (Newark (DE) and London, 2001), pp. 59, 131, 191, fig. 35
  • 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. 100, repr. (color), p. 30
  • Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, Nineteenth-Century European Art, Prentice-Hall/Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 2003), p. 103, fig. 4-10
  • Louis-Antoine Prat, Le dessin français au XIXe siècle, Somogy Éditions d'Art (Paris, 2011), p. 108, repr. p. 108 as fig. 222
  • Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, Nineteenth-Century European Art, Pearson Prentice Hall (Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2012), pp. 108-109, fig. 4-9
  • Ewa Lajer-Burcharth and Elizabeth M. Rudy, ed., Drawing: The Invention of a Modern Medium, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 196-197, 285, repr. p. 196 as fig. 2

Exhibition History

  • Ouvrages de peinture, sculpture, et architecture, gravures, dessins, modèles, etc, exposés au Louvre par ordre de l'Assemblée nationale, au mois de septembre 1791, l'an Ille de la Liberté, Musée du Louvre, Paris Cedex 01, 09/01/1791 - 09/30/1791
  • Exposition des oeuvres de Prud'hon au profit de sa fille, Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 05/04/1874 - 07/04/1874
  • Dessins de l'école moderne exposés a l'École Nationale des Beaux-Arts au profit de la Caisse de Secours de l'Association, École Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 02/01/1884 - 02/28/1884
  • Exposition Universelle de 1900, Exposition de Paris, Paris, 04/15/1900 - 11/12/1900
  • Exposition P.-P. Prud'hon, Petit Palais, Paris, Paris, 05/01/1922 - 06/05/1922
  • A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 10/23/2003 - 01/25/2004
  • HAA 271x The Origins of Modernity: The "New" 18th Century Rotation #2: Large Niche (S426A) Spring 2011, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 03/11/2011 - 06/18/2011
  • Drawing: The Invention of a Modern Medium, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/21/2017 - 05/07/2017

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu