Faithful Love (1800s): Art, History and Details

Faithful Love (1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Augustin Pajou (French, 1730–1809).

The work and its context

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

These statuettes represent the opposing spectrums of love—fickle and faithful—both portrayed by Cupid. Fickle Love absent-mindedly plays with a butterfly, a symbol of the fleeting moment. Conversely, Faithful Love is accompanied by a dog, the ultimate loyal companion. These works were originally believed to be by the hand of Augustin Pajou, because the works are signed and he made nearly identical sculptures. However, due to the slightly clumsy execution and the awkward scale of the signatures, the museum now believes the statuettes were created by another artist after Pajou's design.

Object facts

• Title: Faithful Love
• Date: 1800s
• Creator attribution: Augustin Pajou (French, 1730–1809)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: marble
• Dimensions: without base: 26 x 10.9 x 10 cm (10 1/4 x 4 5/16 x 3 15/16 in.)
• Collection: Sculpture
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1942.54.2

Collection credit

Gift of Grace Rainey Rogers in memory of her father, William J. Rainey

Further reading listed by the museum

• Milliken, William. "The Rousseau de la Rottière Room the Gift of Grace Rainey Rogers." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 29, no. 4 (April 1942): 47-66

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.