Clio, Muse of History (1800): Art, History and Details

Clio, Muse of History (1800) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Charles Meynier (French, 1768–1832).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Look closely at these two muses, Greek goddesses of the arts. Notice the blues and golds of their clothing and Clio’s luminous feathered wings. Although they now hang in a museum gallery, these large paintings once decorated a castle in Switzerland. Museums control temperature and humidity to protect art, but a castle’s environment is harder to manage. When the CMA purchased these paintings in 2003, they showed signs of neglect. Their surfaces were cracked. The varnish, or clear protective coating, had become dark and yellow with age. Painting conservators carefully removed the old varnish to reveal the original brilliant colors, and inpainted areas of paint loss by filling them in with matching paint. Which muse would you want to talk to? What would you ask her?

Object facts

• Title: Clio, Muse of History
• Date: 1800
• Creator attribution: Charles Meynier (French, 1768–1832)
• Culture: France, late 18th-early 19th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 290 x 192.4 x 7 cm (114 3/16 x 75 3/4 x 2 3/4 in.); Unframed: 273 x 176 cm (107 1/2 x 69 5/16 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 2003.6.5

A detail from the museum

Clio's name is derived from a Greek word meaning "to recount" or "to celebrate."

Collection credit

Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Bellenger, Sylvain. "Magnificent Muses", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 44 no. 01, January 2004
• "Major Acquisitions 2000-2005." Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 45, no. 6 (July/August 2005): 6-19.
• Bracken Sparks, Amy. "Disappearing Act." Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 48, no. 5 (May/June 2008): 10-12.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.