MURA · THE COLLECTION · FRANÇOIS BONVIN

Attributes of Music

A still life of a lute, a flute and sheet music, painted by the French Realist François Bonvin in 1863 to hang above a door. The canvas, 62.6 by 116 centimetres, is in the Cleveland Museum of Art, bequeathed by the collector Noah L. Butkin in 1980. Its two companion pieces are in the Louvre.

François Bonvin · 1863 · Oil on fabric · France, 19th century · story written 25 September 2026

What you are looking at

The Cleveland Museum of Art describes it: "A lute and flute rest on top of sheet music. This painting was intended to hang above a door, opposite still lifes that represented the other fine arts of painting and sculpture (the two related paintings are in the Musée du Louvre, Paris)." The wide, low format follows from that placement. Mura's catalogue notes the instruments and open music resting together in a dark, quiet arrangement.

How it was painted

Bonvin (1817–1887) was, in the museum's words, "chiefly a self-taught artist". Born into a poor Paris family, he attended the École de Dessin from 1828 to 1830, worked as a typesetter and then as a clerk at the Paris police headquarters until 1850, painting in his spare time; a still life of 1839 is among his first known oils. He regarded François-Marius Granet as his true mentor and, on Granet's advice, studied the Dutch masters. Wikipedia records a third-class medal at the Salon of 1849, exhibition alongside Courbet in 1850, and a manner recalling Pieter de Hooch and Chardin. The museum places him within Realism: "Led by Gustave Courbet (1819–1877), the Realist painters were interested in depicting the world that surrounded them, as well as the popular culture of their time."

Where it went

The painting surfaced at the Couturier sale at the Hôtel Drouot on 19 March 1976, lot 42, where the Galerie Brame and Lorenceau bought it; the earlier owner is not identified in the sale catalogue. The gallery sold it that year to the Zürich dealer Marianne Feilchenfeldt, from whom Noah L. Butkin of Cleveland acquired it in 1976–77. It entered the Cleveland Museum of Art by his bequest in 1980, accession number 1980.233. The museum included it in "Chardin and the Still-life Tradition in France" (1979) and "The Magic of Still Life" (1986–87), and it travelled to the Snite Museum at Notre Dame in 2012 for an exhibition of the Butkin collection. It is currently not on view.

Why it is in Mura

It belongs to the Gardens & Still Life collection with the mood "quiet": instruments at rest, made to sit above a doorway and be glanced at rather than studied.