Head of an Italian Woman (c. 1847): Art, History and Details

Head of an Italian Woman (c. 1847) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jean-Léon Gérôme (French, 1824–1904).

The work and its context

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

Gérôme spent the years 1843 and 1844 in Rome, where this work was painted. The woman's severe expression and drapery recall ancient Roman statuary as well as the 19th-century belief that the essence of the antique could still be found amid the ruins and people of contemporary Rome.

Object facts

• Title: Head of an Italian Woman
• Date: c. 1847
• Creator attribution: Jean-Léon Gérôme (French, 1824–1904)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on fabric
• Dimensions: Framed: 60 x 51 x 6 cm (23 5/8 x 20 1/16 x 2 3/8 in.); Unframed: 44.5 x 36 cm (17 1/2 x 14 3/16 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1980.264

Collection credit

Bequest of Noah L. Butkin

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1980.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 68, no. 6 (June 1981): 163–219.
• Argencourt, Louise d', and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974.
• Ackerman, Gerald M. Jean-Léon Gérôme: monographie révisée, catalogue raisonné mis à jour. Courbevoie: ACR, 2000.

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.