Jean Bernard Restout - Sleep - 1963.502 - Cleveland Museum of Art

The tradition of painting nude male figures in a studio setting was the cornerstone of artistic practice, teaching artists to depict the human body in complex poses in order to create larger narratives. However, by the late 1700s, some artists began to see these studies as independent works of art. By adding the wings and the poppies, Restout transformed his study into a more specific subject, and he first exhibited the work in a privately organized exhibition in 1783 under the title of Morpheus, the god of sleep.