Cupids in Conspiracy (1740s): Art, History and Details

Cupids in Conspiracy (1740s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is François Boucher (French, 1703–1770).

The work and its context

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

Along with Music and Dance (1948.181.1), this work is surely part of a series of over-door paintings that would have been installed in a house. However, where the panels were originally installed or who commissioned them remains unknown. They exemplify the fusion of fine arts and decorative arts that was common in elite interior design in 18th-century France. Even though the paintings were part of the wall decoration of the room, the patrons chose François Boucher, a well-known painter of portraits and genre scenes, as well as mythological and religious subjects, to execute them. These two paintings reflect a style that was popular both at court and among other wealthy patrons through much of the eighteenth century: light, charming, pastoral scenes that mix classical elements with pure fantasy. Both of them feature putti, chubby baby characters that add a touch of humor to the images.

Object facts

• Title: Cupids in Conspiracy
• Date: 1740s
• Creator attribution: François Boucher (French, 1703–1770)
• Culture: France
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 77.5 x 131.5 x 6 cm (30 1/2 x 51 3/4 x 2 3/8 in.); Unframed: 68.8 x 123.2 cm (27 1/16 x 48 1/2 in.)
• Collection: P - French 18th Century
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1948.181.2

Collection credit

Gift of the Louis Dudley Beaumont Foundation

Further reading listed by the museum

• Detroit Institute of Arts. The Fourth Loan Exhibition of Old Masters: French Paintings of the Eighteenth Century, Detroit Institute of Arts, December 2 to 20, 1926. [Detroit]: [Institute of Arts], 1926.
• Wadsworth Atheneum. Loan Exhibition of French Art of the Eighteenth Century: Morgan Memorial, Hartford, January 23, to February 6, 1929. [Hartford]: [Morgan Memorial], 1929.
• Maurois, André. Three French Reigns: Louis XIV, XV and XVI. [London]: [publisher not identified], 1933.

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.