A Beauvais Allegorical Tapestry

Late 18th Century

representing Painting and Sculpture.
8 feet 8 inches x 10 feet 3 inches.

Property from the American University Museum, Washington, D.C.

Provenance:

French and Co., New York

Collection of William A. Clark (American, 1839-1925)

Corcoran Gallery of Art (acquired in 1928)

Note:

An illustrated handbook of the William A. Clark Collection, dating to 1928, notes that the three Beauvais tapestries accessioned, Genius of the Arts, representing Painting and Sculpture, Genius of the Arts, representing Life and the Harvest or Earth Bringing Forth in Abundance, and Ceres in a Chariot, and Zephyr Leading Psyche into the Palace of Love are after designs by François Boucher [1]. A more recent museum publication from 2001 conversely attributes two of the scenes, Painting and Sculpture and The Sciences and the Arts, to Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée and just one, Zephyr Leading Psyche into the Palace of Love, as being after a cartoon by Boucher. [2]

[1] The Corcoran Gallery of Art. Illustrated Handbook of the W.A. Clark Collection (Washington, D.C.: The Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1928), 71.

[2] The Corcoran Gallery of Art. Antiquities to Impressionism: The William A. Clark Collection (Washington DC: The Corcoran Gallery of Art, 2001), 21.