Sleeping Endymion (1716): Art, History and Details

Sleeping Endymion (1716) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Agostino Cornacchini (Italian, 1686–1754).

The work and its context

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

Cornacchini moved away from the dramatic movement and light effects characteristic of baroque sculpture toward a calmer, gentler, more graceful style favored by 18th-century taste. This sculpture depicts Endymion, a beautiful young shepherd from Greek mythology. His beauty so entranced Selene, the personification of the moon, that she asked Zeus to grant Endymion immortality. Zeus did so, but only after placing Endymion in an eternal sleep.

Object facts

• Title: Sleeping Endymion
• Date: 1716
• Creator attribution: Agostino Cornacchini (Italian, 1686–1754)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: marble
• Dimensions: Overall: 64.8 x 53.4 x 45.8 cm (25 1/2 x 21 x 18 1/16 in.)
• Collection: Sculpture
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1942.51

Collection credit

Gift of Grace Rainey Rogers in memory of her father, William J. Rainey

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.
• Pillsbury, Edmund P., and Cleveland Museum of Art. Florence and the Arts; Five Centuries of Patronage. [Cleveland]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1971.

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.