Description
This painting is a smaller version of a mural on the same subject painted for the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, which has a companion mural titled Winter. A writer at the time described Summer as "filled with joy, happiness, rest, and the apotheosis of life." Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, and Pablo Picasso were among the many modernists influenced by Puvis de Chavannes’s dreamlike themes and anti-naturalistic style of simplified, flattened forms.
Provenance
Bought from the artist by Durand-Ruel, Paris (stock number 1882), 29 October 1891. (1891-1892); Sold to Durand-Ruel, New York (stock number 864), 5 January 1892. (1892); (Durand-Ruel, New York, NY, January 5, 1892, no. 864.) (1892); (Durand-Ruel, New York, NY, November 16, 1892 sold to Jeptha H. Wade) (1892); Jeptha H. Wade [1811-1980] Cleveland, OH, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art,1916 (1892-1916); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1916-)
Accession Number
1916.1056
Medium
oil on fabric
Dimensions
Framed: 189.5 x 270.5 x 14.6 cm (74 5/8 x 106 1/2 x 5 3/4 in.); Unframed: 149.6 x 232.4 cm (58 7/8 x 91 1/2 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Wade