Reclining Nude with Cupid (1700s): Art, History and Details

Reclining Nude with Cupid (1700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Giovanni Battista Cipriani (Italian, 1727–1785).

The work and its context

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

Giovanni Battista Cipriani spent much of his career in England, where he was a founding member of the Royal Academy. There, he taught life classes and focused on the study of the human form in his own work, such as this sheet. In addition to anatomical study, Cipriani often added fantastical flourishes to his studies, such as the cherub seen here.

Object facts

• Title: Reclining Nude with Cupid
• Date: 1700s
• Creator attribution: Giovanni Battista Cipriani (Italian, 1727–1785)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: red chalk heightened with white chalk on brown handmade antique laid paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 27.5 x 39.1 cm (10 13/16 x 15 3/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2019.257

A detail from the museum

A series of Giovani Battista Cipriani’s drawings were published after his death as an instructional text for students of the medium.

Collection credit

Bequest of Muriel Butkin

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.