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Portrait of Christoph Willibald Gluck
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
A well-known composer of the 1700s, Gluck reformed opera by bringing unprecedented simplicity and sincerity to his music and staging, qualities shared by Houdon’s bust. This portrait, by depicting Gluck’s pockmarked face, was perceived as a natural and truthful representation. Yet, he would never have appeared publicly with unkempt hair and an open collar, which constituted the standard for representing an artist.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit linePortrait of Christoph Willibald Gluck, c. 1775. Jean-Antoine Houdon (French, 1741–1828). Terracotta; overall: 49.5 x 40 x 28.5 cm (19 1/2 x 15 3/4 x 11 1/4 in.); with base: 64 x 39.3 x 28.1 cm (25 3/16 x 15 1/2 x 11 1/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund, 1988.59
