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A Eunuch's Dream
Jean-Jules-Antoine Lecomte du Nouÿ1874
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland, United States
This painting, inspired by Charles Montesquieu's Persian Letters (published in 1721), depicts a eunuch who wanted to marry a harem slave. He experienced a vision of her while smoking his opium pipe, but her little companion holding a knife dripping with blood reminds us that the eunuch's anatomy precludes the fulfillment of his dream. The outline of a hand next to the signature is a khamsa, a symbol used to ward off evil.
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Details
- Title: A Eunuch's Dream
- Creator: Jean Lecomte du Nouÿ (French, 1842–1923)
- Date Created: 1874
- Physical Dimensions: Framed: 54 x 74.5 x 5.5 cm (21 1/4 x 29 5/16 x 2 3/16 in.); Unframed: 39.3 x 65.4 cm (15 1/2 x 25 3/4 in.)
- Provenance: (Sale, Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, April 28, 1977, lot 209, possibly sold to Noah L. and Muriel Butkin), (Noah L. and Muriel S. Butkin, Cleveland, Ohio, given by Muriel S. Butkin to the Cleveland Museum of Art, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
- Type: Painting
- Rights: CC0
- External Link: https://clevelandart.org/art/1991.173
- Medium: oil on wood
- Inscriptions: Signed center left: Lecomte du Nouÿ / 1874
- Fun Fact: Much of Jean Lecomte du Nouÿ's artwork was inspired by travelling to Egypt as a young man.
- Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Culture: France, 19th century
- Credit Line: Seventy-fifth anniversary gift of Mrs. Noah L. Butkin
- Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
- Accession Number: 1991.173
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