Self-Portrait with Five Muses (c. 1880): Art, History and Details

Self-Portrait with Five Muses (c. 1880) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Henry Church (American, 1836–1908).

The work and its context

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

Lifelong Chagrin Falls resident Church is considered one of the great self-taught artists of 19th-century America. A painter, sculptor, and musician by passion, he offered his appearance and enthusiasms in this highly imaginative self-portrait, surrounding himself with a squadron of miniature winged muses. These figures represent not only the traditional arts of painting, sculpture, and music, but also Church's profession of blacksmithing (identified as a crowned figure holding a hammer and anvil). A savvy entrepreneur, Church launched the first commercial art gallery in northeast Ohio: Church's Art Museum, at Geauga Lake, in 1888. Its inventory consisted entirely of his own work.

Object facts

• Title: Self-Portrait with Five Muses
• Date: c. 1880
• Creator attribution: Henry Church (American, 1836–1908)
• Culture: United States, Ohio, Cleveland
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on paper mounted to board
• Dimensions: Unframed: 73.3 x 59.7 cm (28 7/8 x 23 1/2 in.)
• Collection: American - Cleveland School
• Department: American Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 2012.30

A detail from the museum

Church "spoke" at his funeral via an Edison phonograph recording he made for the occasion.

Collection credit

Delia E. Holden Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Rosenberg, Sam. "Henry Church of Chagrin." In They Taught Themselves; American Primitive Painters of the 20th Century, edited by Sidney Janis. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1965.
• Janis, Sidney. They Taught Themselves; American Primitive Painters of the 20th Century. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1965.
• Rosenberg, Sam. "Henry Church: 1836-1908." In American Folk Painters of Three Centuries, edited by Jean Lipman and Tom Armstrong. New York, NY: Hudson Hills Press, 1980.

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.