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Head of a Boy Singing (Study for Music)
Luc-Olivier Mersonc. 1898
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland, United States
This sheet was a preparatory study for the face of a singing boy who appears near the center of <em>Music</em>, a mural decorating the left grand staircase at the Théâtre National de l’Opéra-Comique in Paris. Drawn from life with exquisite naturalism, Luc-Olivier Merson captured the sitter’s youthful beauty with such clarity that the purity of the boy’s voice seems to emanate from the drawing.
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Details
- Title: Head of a Boy Singing (Study for Music)
- Creator: Luc-Olivier Merson (French, 1846-1920)
- Date Created: c. 1898
- Physical Dimensions: Sheet: 39.6 x 27.2 cm (15 9/16 x 10 11/16 in.)
- Provenance: (Galerie Jacques Fischer-Chantal Kiener, Paris, sold to Muriel Butkin, Shaker Heights, OH), Muriel Butkin [1916-2008], Shaker Heights, OH, by bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
- Type: Drawing
- Rights: CC0
- External Link: https://clevelandart.org/art/2008.394
- Medium: black, white, and red chalk with stumping, pricked for transfer
- Inscriptions: signed, center right, in black chalk: L. O. M; lower left, in graphite: 33 40
- Fun Fact: The face of the boy in this drawing is pricked extensively so that the image could be transferred directly to the final painting for which it was a study. The two works differ only in the addition of a hat on the boy's head in the final work.
- Department: Drawings
- Culture: France, 19th century
- Credit Line: Bequest of Muriel Butkin
- Collection: Drawings
- Accession Number: 2008.394
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