Woman Sleeping in a Landscape with a Letter (c. 1800): Art, History and Details

Woman Sleeping in a Landscape with a Letter (c. 1800) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Bernard Gaillot (French, 1780–1847).

The work and its context

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

The subject matter here probably comes from an English novel popular in France around 1800. The monument’s inscription indicates that the wife of Fotheringham, an English military leader in India, has recently died. The reclining woman (perhaps sleeping, mourning, or dead) has dropped a portrait miniature of Fotheringham, accompanying a letter to his mother. The narrative has yet to be deciphered, but the husband may have written home, unaware of his wife’s death.

Object facts

• Title: Woman Sleeping in a Landscape with a Letter
• Date: c. 1800
• Creator attribution: Bernard Gaillot (French, 1780–1847)
• Culture: France
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 36 x 44 cm (14 3/16 x 17 5/16 in.); Unframed: 32.4 x 40.6 cm (12 3/4 x 16 in.)
• Collection: P - French 18th Century
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 2008.289

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.