Polyhymnia, Muse of Eloquence; Erato, Muse of Lyrical Poetry; Apollo, God of Light, Eloquence, Poetry and the Fine Arts with Urania, Muse of Astronomy; Calliope, Muse of Epic Poetry; Clio, Muse of History

This large canvas by Charles Meynier depicting five of the nine Muses together — Polyhymnia, Erato, Apollo with Urania, Calliope, and Clio — is the compositional centrepiece of his Cleveland Muses series, gathering into a single ensemble the figures he had distributed across five separate canvases. Exhibited at the Salon of 1800, the combined canvas presents the Neoclassical programme of the arts and sciences in its most ambitious form: a celebration of human intellectual achievement organised around the classical system of the Muses that the Revolutionary intelligentsia had adopted as a secular replacement for the Christian calendar of saints. The monumental scale and programmatic completeness of the composition reflect Meynier's ambition to produce a work of the first order at precisely the moment when Neoclassical painting was reaching its definitive public statement under Napoleon's rising cultural programme.

The large multi-figure composition demonstrates Meynier's control of the Prix de Rome manner at its most ambitious — the figures arranged with classical clarity, each identified by precise attributes, the whole organised as a frieze-like assembly that draws on ancient relief sculpture. The cool, clear palette and smooth surface finish give the work its characteristic Neoclassical authority.