Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00011566Boreas Abducting Oreithyia
About the Artwork
Pierre took the subject of this drawing from the celebrated work the Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid (43 bc-ad 17), which recounts the loves of the gods and goddesses of antiquity. Oreithyia, daughter of Erectheus, king of Athens, so inspired the passion of the god of the north wind, Boreas, that he descended to the earth to kidnap her. Although this subject was not especially common, Ovid was a favorite source for painters during the 1700s. Pierre was influenced here by a tapestry designed by François Boucher showing the same scene.
Inscriptions
Signed in brown ink with the initial 'P' lower left
Provenance
Collection Pierre Geismar (Lugt 2078b; sale November 15, 1928(?)); Contemporary mount with the mark 'FR' (Lugt 1042); (Galerie Arnoldi-Livie, Munich); Mrs. Noah L. Butkin, Cleveland (1998)
Exhibition history
French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26-October 28, 2001); Dahesh Museum of Art (February 19-May 18, 2002).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre (French, 1713–1789)
- Date
- c. 1755–1760
- Medium
- red chalk
- Dimensions
- Overall: 22.5 x 40.9 cm (8 7/8 x 16 1/8 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Bequest of Muriel Butkin
- Accession no.
- 2008.366
More by Jean Baptiste Marie Pierre in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00011566
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