The Cleveland Museum of Art

• Full conservation statement
  Before entering the collection, this entire suite of five monumental paintings by Charles Meynier had numerous conservation issues, including pronounced discolored varnish, years of accumulated grime, and canvases that were detaching from their stretchers, creating large buckles along the edges. The CMA designed a four-year-long comprehensive conservation campaign to address these concerns, which involved removing the grime, reducing the discolored varnish, flattening buckles and undulations in the canvas, followed by inpainting mainly to compensate for pronounced traction cracking in the original paint layers. Traction cracking occurs when the top layers of paint dry faster than the underlayers, creating breaks in the top layers, revealing the underlying preparatory layers that were not intended to be seen. Horizontal cracking at regular intervals is present in each painting and is likely caused by rolling the canvases to transport them to the Castella chateau in Wallenreid, Switzerland, where the paintings remained until the CMA purchased them in 2003. After removal of the discolored, nearly brown varnish layers, nuanced, dynamic, and balanced color relationships were uncovered, as Meynier skillfully juxtaposed colors within the draperies of the muses. For example, in Polyhymnia, the Muse of Eloquence, Meynier places her soft gray-violet drapery next to a yellow orange drapery, using a darker violet tone at the edges of the folds to create volume. These two complimentary colors are beautifully balanced against each other. The exquisitely carved gold leaf frames are original to the paintings.
• Provenance
  In 1819, Nicolas-Antoine de Castella, general of the Swiss regiments in France, purchased the paintings and placed them in his Castle of Wallenreid, Switzerland; direct descendants; Pierre de Castella, Mannaz, Switzerland.
• Citations
  Bellenger, Sylvain, Paul J. and Edith Ingalls Vignos Jr. "Magnificent Muses", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 44 no. 01, January 2004 Mentioned & reproduced: p. 4-5 archive.org

  Bracken Sparks, Amy, "Disappearing Act", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 48 no. 5, May/June 2008 Mentioned & reproduced: p. 10 archive.org
• Cite this Page
  {{cite web|title=Polyhymnia, Muse of Eloquence|url=false|author=Charles Meynier|year=1800|access-date=14 March 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}