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

Music and Dance and 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 Cupids in Conspiracy (1948.181.2), 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: Music and Dance and 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: 69 x 123 cm (27 3/16 x 48 7/16 in.)
• Collection: P - French 18th Century
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1948.181

Collection credit

Gift of the Louis Dudley Beaumont Foundation

Further reading listed by the museum

• Christie, Manson & Woods. Catalogue of Important Pictures by Old Masters and of the Early English School: Including Masterpieces of Murillo, Jacob Ruysdael and Weenix, from the Clewer Manor Collection, Also Choice Examples of Watteau, Hobbema & W.V. De Velde the Property of a Nobleman, Also the Family Portraits of the Late Sir John Chandos Reade, Sixth Baronet, Fine Works of Canaletto & Rembrandt, the Property of J. Carpenter Garnier, Esq., the Celebrated Engraved Portrait of Admiral Viscount Nelson, by J. Hoppner, R.A., the Property of the Rt. Hon. Viscound Bridport, and Other Fine Portraits by T. Gainsborough, R.A., Sir J. Reynolds, G. Romney, &C. London: Printed by Wm. Clowes & Sons, Ltd, 1895.
• 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.

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.