Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00009717Arion on a Sea Horse
About the Artwork
These paintings are from a series of eight works that Anatole Bartholoni commissioned the 29-year-old Bouguereau to create for his Paris home, decorated in the fashionable Pompeian-revival style. The paintings emulate ancient Roman designs. Crisp, cut-out forms are set against a gold background painted in imitation of mosaic. Arion was an ancient Greek poet who escaped death by riding away on the back of a sea creature who had been attracted by the poet's song. In the companion picture, a bacchante—a female worshipper of the wine god Bacchus—rides a panther, the god's symbolic animal. These works were shown at the 1857 Paris Salon exhibition.
Inscriptions
Signed lower right: wb [in monogram] / 1855
Provenance
Commissioned by Anatole Bartholoni, Paris. Paris sale, Drouot, 27 April 1933 (lot 32), Arion chevauchant un monstre marin (lot 33), Bacchante sur une panthère (repr.), Shepherd Gallery, New York, 1972. Christopher Gibbs Ltd., London, 1973. London sale, Sotheby's, 30 November 1977 (lot 208), Arion sur un dauphin; Bacchante sur une panthère (repr.), £6500. Noah L. Butkin, Cleveland. Bequeathed to the CMA in 1980.
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- William Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825–1905)
- Date
- 1855
- Medium
- oil on fabric
- Dimensions
- Framed: 87.3 x 127 x 5.4 cm (34 3/8 x 50 x 2 1/8 in.); Unframed: 71.3 x 111.8 cm (28 1/16 x 44 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Bequest of Noah L. Butkin
- Accession no.
- 1980.238.1
More by William Adolphe Bouguereau in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00009717
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