Greek Maidens Adorning a Sleeping Cupid with Flowers

mythological

In 1773 Vien received the patronage of Mme du Barry, who for her Chteau de Louveciennes commissioned the series of four works depicting the Progress of Love in the Hearts of Young Girls. Two from the series, the Greek Maidens Adorning a Sleeping Cupid with Flowers, and the Lover Crowning his Mistress, are in the Louvre.

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Greek Maidens Adorning a Sleeping Cupid with Flowers

About the Artist

Joseph-Marie Vien

1716 – 1809

French painter. A winner of the Prix de Rome , he was in Rome at a time (1743-50) that coincided with excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii, and in his lifetime he gained a great reputation (partly self-promoted) as a pioneer of the Neoclassical style. He was enthusiastic for the ideas of Winckelmann, but his classicism was of a very superficial kind, consisting of prim and sentimentalized anecdote or allegory with pseudo-antique trappings ( The Cupid Seller, Château de Fontainebleau, 1763). Nevertheless, he gauged the taste of the time well and had a career of exemplary success, becoming director of the French Academy in Rome (1776) and First Painter to the King (1789). He was made a senator by Napoleon after the Revolution, a count in 1808, and was buried in the Pantheon. David was his most important pupil. His son, Joseph-Marie the Younger (1762-1848), was also a painter, mainly of portraits.

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