Jeanne Balzac (1923): Art, History and Details

Jeanne Balzac (1923) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Eugene Speicher (American, 1883–1962).

The work and its context

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

Sitter Jeanne de Balzac (1891–1930) was a French actor who visited the U.S. during the early 1920s, attempting unsuccessfully to break into the American film industry. According to some reports, she was related to novelist Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), a speculation she neither confirmed nor denied.

Object facts

• Title: Jeanne Balzac
• Date: 1923
• Creator attribution: Eugene Speicher (American, 1883–1962)
• Culture: America
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Unframed: 127.6 x 102.3 cm (50 1/4 x 40 1/4 in.)
• Collection: American - Painting
• Department: American Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1924.1424

A detail from the museum

Among his close circle of friends, artist Eugene Speicher was nicknamed "Spike."

Collection credit

Hinman B. Hurlbut Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art. Catalogue of an Exhibition of American Painting from 1860 Until Today at the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland]: [Printed by the Artcraft Printing Co.], 1937.
• "Mlle. Jeanne Balzac, by Eugene Speicher." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 11, no. 10 (December 1924): 193-194
• Cleveland Museum of Art. Catalogue of an Exhibition of American Painting from 1860 until Today at the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland]: [Printed by the Artcraft Printing Co.], 1937.

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.