LADIES, we love this piece. It’s romantic and of course European to the max, with the focus on the romance of France during this period of history. Done by the talented, Charles Meynier. He was a very successful French painter of historical subjects in the late 18th and early 19th century. He was a contemporary of Jaques-Louis David and lived through those chaotic years of the fall of the monarchy (Louis The 16th), the 1st Republic, and then the rise of Napoleon. Napoleon later became a patron and later a subject for a painting that documented his decline and defeat (Title: Napoleon on the Isle of Lobau).
He was the son of a tailor and a known “ladies’ man.”
NOTE: Portrait of the artist by sometimes lover and life long friend, Marie-Gabrielle Capet.
ABOUT THE WORK OF ART:
Charles Meynier (French, 1763 or 1768 – 1832)
Poetry and the fine arts with Urania, muse of astronomy. Also known as “The Courtship of Urania.” Created in 1798, oil on canvas
275 × 235 cm – Can be seen at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland