The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of November 29, 2023

Abduction of the Sabine Women

c. 1640

Johann Heinrich Schönfeld

(German, 1609–1684)

Germany, 17th century

Oil on canvas

Framed: 129 x 178 x 7.5 cm (50 13/16 x 70 1/16 x 2 15/16 in.); Unframed: 110 x 160 cm (43 5/16 x 63 in.)

Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1982.143

Location

not on view

Description

Shortly after Rome was founded, the Romans abducted the women of the neighboring Sabines to be their wives. During the ensuing war, the Sabine women intervened, making peace between the two sides. Painted in Naples, this canvas seems to be the last of four versions of the subject painted by Schönfeld (two in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, another in a private collection).

Provenance
Anne Lise Thomasen, Copenhagen (1930).
(Galerie Grünwald; Galerie Arnoldi-Livie, Munich), sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1982.
Exhibition history

CMA 1983: "Year in Review 1982," Bull., LXX (Jan. 1983), p. 50, cat. # 16, repr. p. 12.

The Year in Review for 1982. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 5-February 6, 1983).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1982.143