The Lovers (1872): Art, History and Details

The Lovers (1872) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is James Tissot (French, 1836–1902).

The work and its context

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

James Tissot lived in London in 1871–82 where he established a reputation as painter of elegantly dressed women in modern, fashionable settings. This painting, made at the beginning of his London period, was designed to appeal to Victorian audiences who enjoyed art that hinted at narrative. Here, a young couple enters an upholstered interior, leaving a sunlit garden. The woman’s gesture suggests contemplation; might she be considering a proposal made by the man who follows closely behind her? Their exchange, ultimately, remains mysterious.

Object facts

• Title: The Lovers
• Date: 1872
• Creator attribution: James Tissot (French, 1836–1902)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Unframed: 101 x 61.5 cm (39 3/4 x 24 3/16 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 2022.140

A detail from the museum

James Tissot was close friends with Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, and Berthe Morisot, but declined Degas’s invitation to participate in the first Impressionist exhibition of 1874.

Collection credit

Partial gift from Ralph and Terry Kovel and Family, and partial purchase from the John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Sotheby’s New York, “James Tissot: The Proposal,” The European Art Sale, May 20, 2021, lot 219
• Melissa E. Buron, Krystyna Matyjaszkiewicz, et. al. James Tissot, exh. cat. (San Francisco, CA : de Young, Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Munich; New York: DelMonico Books·Prestel, 2019), fig 23, p. 19.
• Robinson, William H. "Two Figures at a Door (The Proposal?): A James Tissot painting joins the collection.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 63, no. 1 (2023): 34-35.

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.