The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Vertically-oriented oil painting depicting a intertwining column of nude bodies with light skin tones rising in the lower left. A nude person with medium-like skin stone leans up and back at the top of the column, reaching for a woman with light skin tone floating above him wearing rippling garments, hugging herself and looking out at us. From the dark grey clouds, one of several angels with light skin tones reaches down for her. Left, another winged person holds weighing scales, while, two more winged figures stand against a blue and yellow sky along the upper edge, one holding a sword.

Heaven and Hell

c. 1850

Octave Tassaert

(French, 1800–1874)
France, 19th century
oil on fabric
Framed: 121 x 90.5 x 6.5 cm (47 5/8 x 35 5/8 x 2 9/16 in.); Unframed: 100 x 69.5 cm (39 3/8 x 27 3/8 in.)
Bequest of Noah L. Butkin 1980.287
Location: Not on view

Description

This painting focuses upon the struggle between good and evil for the soul of a young woman. Looking out at the viewer, she is shown in the upper center of the composition, immediately below an angel and directly above Satan. At the upper right Saint Michael—holding scales for weighing the goodness of souls—admits the blessed to Heaven. Below, the Damned struggle to avoid the fiery pits of Hell and the demons that will torment them for eternity. At the time Tassaert painted this work, France was undergoing considerable political upheaval. In 1848, the country was wracked by a civil war between royalist and republican forces. Tassaert himself believed strongly in the Republic, and probably intended the young woman—caught between the sensual, worldly temptations of royalist excesses and the noble, pure ideals of the Republic—to personify the country of France.
  • Georges Martin du Nord, Paris, France
    (Shepherd Gallery, New York, NY)
    -1977
    (Shepherd Gallery, New York, NY, May 1977, sold to Mr. and Mrs. Noah L. Butkin)
    1977-1980
    Mr. Noah L. Butkin, Cleveland, OH by bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    1980-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Cleveland Museum of Art. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European paintings of the 19th century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974. Mentioned and reproduced: Vol. II, P. 595-597, no. 209
    Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1980." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 68, no. 6 (June 1981): 163-219. Reproduced: P. 170, no. 72; Mentioned: P. 182, 213 www.jstor.org
  • Year in Review: 1980. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (June 24-July 19, 1981).
    New York, Shepherd Gallery. Christian Imagery in French Nineteenth Century Art 1789-1906 (Spring 1980), no. 60 (repr.).
  • {{cite web|title=Heaven and Hell|url=false|author=Octave Tassaert|year=c. 1850|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1980.287