Allegorical subject

Overdoors (dessus-de-porte) were an integral decorative feature of the luxurious eighteenth-century French interior. It was customary to place decorative paintings in the space between the top of the door frame and the ceiling which were framed by carved wooden decoration that would match the rest of the paneling in the room. This large overdoor frames an allegorical subject, most likely a depiction of a scantily dressed Venus, the Goddess of Beauty, reclining on a cloud, and Cupid, the youthful and winged God of Love, holding one finger to his lip and carrying a thunderbolt in the other hand. Garlands of flowers, including roses, symbol of Venus, are suspended from pink ribbons in the painting and carved in the wooden frame. A trompe l’oeil pedestal with a faux bas relief depicting playing putti, seems to be supporting the cloud.



This overdoor was part of the model collection of woodwork, paneling, and seat furniture of Maison Leys, a successful decorating business, located at the Place de la Madeleine in Paris. Since 1885 the business was directed by Georges Hoentschel who installed the collection in 1903 in a museum-like display at Boulevard Flandrin, Paris. Three years later, Hoentschel sold the collection to J. Pierpont Morgan who gave the overdoor with the rest of the decorator’s seventeenth and eighteenth-century objects to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1907.