The Muses Urania and Calliope

c. 1634

Simon Vouet

Painter, French, 1590 - 1649

Two pale-skinned women wearing jewel-toned blue, pink, and yellow togas sit on the ground at the foot of a stone building, with three, winged, child-like putti flying nearby in this horizontal painting. The women take up most of the left half of the painting while the building behind them spans nearly three-quarters of the composition. A sliver of landscape is visible beyond the building to our right. Both women have dark, ash-brown hair wrapped back around diadems, long, straight noses, dark eyes, and smooth skin. Their cheeks are flushed, and their dark pink lips are parted. To our left, the first woman sits with her body facing our right in profile, and she turns to look at us from the corners of her eyes. Six silver stars line the sky-blue diadem in her hair. Her voluminous white shift falls off the shoulder closer to us, and she wears a swath of sapphire-blue drapery over her other arm and lap. One foot, wearing a yellow sandal, emerges from under the hem of her robe. She leans the elbow closer to us on a silver sphere, which comes a bit higher than her waist. Her other hand rests on the shoulder of the woman next to her. The second woman sits with her legs angled to our right, and she turns her face back to look at the first woman. She wears a butter-yellow garment under a rose-pink toga, and one foot, wearing a blue sandal, rests on the dirt ground. A baby-blue ribbon is tied through her hair, around a gold coronet. Her hands rest on a book in her lap. The partial word “odiss” is written along the edges of the pages facing us. Three pudgy angels with small blue wings flutter near the second woman, to our right. The putti have short, brown or blond, curly hair. Sashes in golden yellow, pink, or blue are tied around one shoulder and their opposite hips. They hold up three crowns of leaves. The building immediately behind the women and putti is parchment white streaked with brown. A tall foundation supports two columns, the base of which are near the top edge of the painting. A few plants grow out of the crevices, and a bush with white and light blue flowers grows behind the woman in blue, to our left. A landscape extends into the distance to our right, with rolling green hills, trees, and far-off, ice-blue mountains along the horizon. The sky above has apricot-peach and gray clouds against a pale blue sky.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 37

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on wood

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 79.8 x 125 cm (31 7/16 x 49 3/16 in.)
    framed: 105.4 x 150.2 x 10.2 cm (41 1/2 x 59 1/8 x 4 in.)

  • Accession

    1961.9.61

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

M. de Mauméjan; (his estate sale, Lacoste and Henry, Paris, 29 June-2 July 1825, no. 47).[1] Miss E.M. Linton, Upper Basildon, Berkshire, England;[2] (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 1 July 1955, no. 154); (David M. Koetser Gallery, New York, London, and Zurich);[2] sold 1957 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1961 to NGA.
[1] Georges Isarlo, Caravage et le caravagisme éuropéen, Aix-en-Provence, 1941: 263.
[2] Miss Linton's name was kindly supplied by Marijke Booth of Christie's Archive Department, London (e-mail to Anne Halpern, 5 December 2007, NGA curatorial files), as was the buyer's name from the auctioneer's book: H. Levat (or Cevat). "Levat" was perhaps buying for, or a pseudonym for, David Koester, who wrote to Colin Eisler (letter of 20 January 1969, NGA curatorial files) that although he had "not kept a record of [the painting's] exact source," he did recall that "he purchased the painting at Christie's, presumably in 1955 or 1956."
[3] See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2246.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1961

  • Exhibition of Art Treasures for America from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1961-1962, no. 101.

2005

  • The Splendor of Ruins in French Landscape Painting 1630-1800, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2005, no. 36, repro. (shown only in Oberlin).

Bibliography

1941

  • Isarlo, George. Caravage et le caravagisme éuropéen. Aix-en-Provence, 1941: 263.

1956

  • Pigler, Andor. Barockthemen: eine Auswahl von Verzeichnissen zur Ikonographie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. 2 vols. Budapest, 1956: 2:34-36, 174-175.

1958

  • Picard, Yves. La vie et l'oeuvre de Simon Vouet. 2 vols. Paris, 1958: 29, pl. 30.

1959

  • Manning, Robert L. "Some Important Paintings by Simon Vouet in America." In Studies in the History of Art Dedicated to William E. Suida on His Eightieth Birthday. London, 1959: 294-303, fig. 9.

1961

  • Walker, John, Guy Emerson, and Charles Seymour. Art Treasures for America: An Anthology of Paintings & Sculpture in the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, 1961: 141, repro. pl. 132.

1962

  • Crelly, William R. The Painting of Simon Vouet. New Haven and London, 1962: 89, 186, no. 83, fig. 177.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 315, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 138.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 125, repro.

1972

  • Leclair, Anne, and Pierre Rosenberg. "De Jean Dubois à Louis-Jacques Durameau: Note sur la Chapelle de la Trinité de Fontainbleau." Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire de l'Art Français. Année 1972 (1973): 17 note 3.

1974

  • Pigler, Anton. Barockthemen: eine Auswahl von Verzeichnissen zur Ikonographie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. 3 vols. Rev. ed. Budapest, 1974: 2:35-36, 184-185.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 370, repro.

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 313, no. 411.

1977

  • Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 261-263, fig. 245.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 313, no. 408, color repro.

  • Walker, John. "National Gallery of Art, Washington." New York, 1984: 313, no. 408, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 429, repro.

1999

  • De Lavergnée, Arnauld Brejon. "Une série de Muses de l'atelier de Simon Vouet." In Ex Fumo Lucem. Baroque Studies in Honour of Klára Garas. 2 vols. Budapest, 1999: 167-180, fig. 5.

2005

  • Baillio, Joseph, et al. The Arts of France from François Ier to Napoléon Ier. A Centennial Celebration of Wildenstein's Presence in New York. Exh. cat. Wildenstein & Co., New York, 2005: 110.

2009

  • Conisbee, Philip, et al. French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2009: no. 97, 461-464, color repro.

Inscriptions

On cradle: in pencil, "2177".

Wikidata ID

Q20177132

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