Sleep: sketch for the painting, now in the museum at Lille
1840–98
Medium
Pen and brown ink on tracing paper
Dimensions
9 13/16 x 13 11/16 in. (24.9 x 34.8 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1909
Accession Number
10.45.19
Tags
Art Historical Context
Pierre Puvis de Chav (1824–1898), a leading French Symbolist painter, this delicate sketch titled *Sleep* as a preparatory study for a larger painting now housed in the des Beaux-Arts in Lille. Working in the late 19th century,vis was renowned for his dreamlike murals and allegorical scenes that blended classical antiquity with poetic introspection, often evoking timeless themes like rest and reverie. This intimate drawing captures the essence of through serene human figures, embodying his signature style of simplified forms and ethereal calm. Executed in pen and brown ink on tracing paper—a ...
About the Artist
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes · 1824–1898
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824–1898) was a French painter who became the foremost muralist of nineteenth-century France and a crucial bridge between academic tradition and modernism. Born in Lyon to a prosperous family, he studied briefly with Henri Scheffer and Thomas Couture in Paris and traveled to Italy, where the frescoes of the Italian Renaissance made a lasting impression on his artistic v...