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Allegory of the Arts

1796
Not on view
In his early career, Vien practiced a "Greek manner," grafting an antiquarian veneer onto his Rococo style. Many of his students, including Jacques Louis David, Pierre Peyron, Jean-Baptiste Regnault, and Joseph Benoît Suvée, would go on to develop a more severe form of Neoclassicism.

In 1789, he was named to the post of director of the Académie Royale, the powerful arts organization under the Bourbon monarchy. Following the Revolution, the institution was dissolved in 1793. In 1796, at age eighty, Vien was made a member of the paintings division of the newly formed Institut de France. In this highly finished drawing made the same year, allegorical figures representing the arts are grouped around a bust of Homer and guided by the example of the antique.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Allegory of the Arts
  • Artist: Joseph Marie Vien (French, Montpellier 1716–1809 Paris)
  • Date: 1796
  • Medium: Pen and black ink, brush and brown wash, over faint black chalk underdrawing
  • Dimensions: sheet: 9 5/8 x 14 1/8 in. (24.4 x 35.8 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Guy Wildenstein and Stephen A. Geiger Gifts, 2008
  • Object Number: 2008.524
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

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Lot and His Daughters, Joseph Marie Vien French, Etching
Lot and His Daughters
Joseph Marie Vien
1748
Guitar, Jean-Baptiste Voboam French, Spruce, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, ivory, ebony, French
Guitar
attributed to Jean-Baptiste Voboam
1697
Ecstatic Christ, Hans Baldung (called Hans Baldung Grien) German, Pen and two shades of carbon black ink, traces of black chalk underdrawing
Ecstatic Christ
Hans Baldung (called Hans Baldung Grien)
ca. 1510–11
Chef des Eunuques (head of the Eunuchs), from the series "Caravane du Sultan à la Mecque..." (Caravan of a Sultan Going to Mecca), Joseph Marie Vien French, Etching
Chef des Eunuques (head of the Eunuchs), from the series "Caravane du Sultan à la Mecque..." (Caravan of a Sultan Going to Mecca)
Joseph Marie Vien
1748
Ceramic Horn, Glazed pottery, French
Ceramic Horn
French
late 18th or early 19th century

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