The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 24, 2024

Aristomenes Mourning the Death of Socrates from the Bewitchment of Meroë (from Book 1 of Apuleius, "The Golden Ass")

Aristomenes Mourning the Death of Socrates from the Bewitchment of Meroë (from Book 1 of Apuleius, "The Golden Ass")

1795
(French, 1763–1810)
France, 18th century
brush and black and gray wash, heightened with white gouache, over graphite
Sheet: 27.9 x 21.3 cm (11 x 8 3/8 in.); Image: 19.8 x 10.3 cm (7 13/16 x 4 1/16 in.)
Bequest of Muriel Butkin 2008.374
Location: not on view

Description

This scene represents the end of a complex episode from the Roman writer Apuleius's (2nd century ad) story The Golden Ass. Aristomenes narrates a tale to the book's main character, Lucius, about a friend named Socrates, whom he meets during his travels. After a disastrous affair with a witch named Meroë, Socrates dies from a wound she inflicts to his throat, and the scene shown here is the moment just after his death. Chaudet is mainly known as a sculptor, but he also designed a number of book illustrations for the most important publisher of the neoclassic period, the Didot firm. Although we know he did a number of drawings for The Golden Ass, the project was never realized as a book.
  • Probably Marie Joseph François Mahérault; [probably his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris (27-29 May 1880), 9, as part of lot no. 19: "Dix dessins pour illustrer l'Ane d'or d'Apulée. Ces dessins sont d'une remarquable finesse. Signés et datés 1795. Sépia et encre de Chine rehaussées de blanc."]. "A late nineteenth-century French collection" (according to Baskett and Day, London). [Galerie Jacques Fischer-Chantal Kiener, Paris]; purchased in 1986.
  • Foster, Carter E., Sylvain Bellenger, and Patrick Shaw Cable. French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 21, p.52-53
  • French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26-October 28, 2001); Dahesh Museum of Art (February 19-May 18, 2002).
  • {{cite web|title=Aristomenes Mourning the Death of Socrates from the Bewitchment of Meroë (from Book 1 of Apuleius, "The Golden Ass")|url=false|author=Antoine-Denis Chaudet|year=1795|access-date=24 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2008.374