''The Great Sirens'' () is a large 1947 painting by the Belgian painter

Paul Delvaux Paul Delvaux (; 23 September 1897 – 20 July 1994) was a Belgian painter noted for his dream-like scenes of women, classical architecture, trains and train stations, and skeletons, often in combination. He is often considered a surrealist, alt ...

in the collection of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Subject and composition

The picture depicts a group of partially nude women in moonlight, sitting motionless before a hill bearing two Greco-Roman style buildings. According to the description from the

, the setting "reveals the painter's admiration of the work of

Giorgio de Chirico Giuseppe Maria Alberto Giorgio de Chirico ( , ; 10 July 1888 – 20 November 1978) was an Italian artist and writer born in Greece. In the years before World War I, he founded the '' scuola metafisica'' art movement, which profoundly influ ...

". The women in the foreground are unashamedly if not threateningly seductive, and in the distance

mermaid In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Asia, and Africa. Mermaids are sometimes asso ...

s are working their magic on a lone individual in a

bowler hat The bowler hat, also known as a billycock, bob hat, bombín (Spanish) or derby (United States), is a hard felt hat with a rounded crown, originally created by the London hat-makers Thomas and William Bowler in 1849. It has traditionally been worn ...

. The whole composition evokes fantasies of erotic love.

Provenance

The painting was first exhibited at the Galerie René Drouin in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

on 5 March 1948. It was bought by the dramatist Claude Spaak in 1949, after which it was sold several times to different collectors in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

. The American music producer

Jean Aberbach Joachim "Jean" Aberbach (12 August 1910 – 24 May 1992) was an Austrian-born American music publisher. With his brother Julian, he was responsible for establishing Hill and Range as one of the leading music publishing houses, responsible for son ...

bought it in 1967. He then traded it with his brother

Julian Aberbach Julian J. Aberbach (8 February 1909 – 17 May 2004) was an Austrian-born music publisher, who lived and worked in both the United States and France. He was responsible, with his younger brother Jean Aberbach, for establishing the Hill and Range mus ...

, who wanted this painting and works by

René Magritte René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and bounda ...

in exchange for some sculptures by

Alberto Giacometti Alberto Giacometti (, , ; 10 October 1901 – 11 January 1966) was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draftsman and printmaker. Beginning in 1922, he lived and worked mainly in Paris but regularly visited his hometown Borgonovo to see his family and ...

. Julian Aberbach gave ''The Great Sirens'' to the

in 1979.

References

External links

''The Great Sirens''
at the

{{DEFAULTSORT:Great Sirens, The 1947 paintings Paintings by Paul Delvaux Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Moon in art