A monumental early 19th-century painting by the talented French artist Charles Meynier (1763–1832) is now on view at the National Gallery of Canada. Wisdom Defending Youth from the Arrows of Love, measuring 242 × 206 cm, was first shown at the Paris Salon in 1810, and was once in the collection of famed ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev.

“By adding Wisdom Defending Youth to the national collection, the Gallery will be able to offer visitors a richer and more complete story of artistic creativity in the early 19th century, a time of radical change in both society and the arts. Meynier was one of the most talented painters of his generation, and this work shows him at his best – as an artist of great imagination and intelligence,” said NGC Director and CEO Marc Mayer.

The monumental canvas depicts a young hero poised between two alternate futures: a life of empty pleasure, offered by Venus, goddess of love and one of struggle and glory, offered by Minerva, warrior-goddess of wisdom. Cupids, symbolizing the power of uncontrolled desire, attack him with their arrows, while only Wisdom’s shield defends him. The hero will choose the virtuous life, but his decision is difficult, fraught with regret for what he must leave behind. The work is an appeal to self-discipline and control – concepts that resonated in Napoleon’s empire, with its cult of military glory and service to the state.

The work was commissioned by Count Giovanni Battista Sommariva (1760–1826), who amazed his contemporaries with his lavish patronage of the arts. Rich, well connected and corrupt, Sommariva helped shape the art of painting in early 19th-century France.

The ambitious Wisdom Defending Youth adds even greater depth to the NGC’s already strong collection of Neoclassical art, which includes works by Meynier’s contemporaries, Jacques-Louis David, Joseph Chinard, Baron Antoine-Jean Gros, Pierre-Paul Prud’hon and Antonio Canova, among others. In 2012, the Gallery acquired Prud’hon’s Love Seduces Innocence, Pleasure Entraps, and Remorse Follows, commissioned by Empress Josephine for exhibition at the same 1810 Paris Salon, although never finished. Two hundred years later, the two paintings can at last be seen together.

Long ignored, Meynier has only recently been re-assessed. A skilled artist, he was famed for his monumental paintings decorating the Louvre and the Stock Exchange, among other buildings, and for designing the sculptures on the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, one of the classic monuments celebrating Napoleon.