Bouguereau championed academic training throughout his successful artistic career, even as it fell out of favor during the last decades of the century. Beginning in the 1850s and 1860s, young artists working in France showed an increased awareness of the social and economic changes taking place as regions of Europe moved toward industrialization and peasants abandoned the countryside in search of urban jobs. The Impressionists, who first exhibited together three years after this painting was finished, prided themselves on depicting modern life: their landscapes often include smokestacks, and their views of city life feature laundresses and prostitutes. But academic artists such as Bouguereau had no desire to "debase" their art this way. Bouguereau's peasants are invariably idealized: they are presented as glorified, clean, and noble, and they are often arranged in poses that recall ancient Greek sculpture. This particular painting is based partly on sketches Bouguereau made in Brittany, but it was finished in his studio. And like many of his works, it was purchased by an American collector as soon as it was completed.
[Goupil & Co., New York, 1871; sold November 21 to Wolfe]; John David Wolfe, New York (1871–d. 1872); his daughter, Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, New York (1872–d. 1887)
Portland, Oreg. Portland Art Museum. "Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition, 1892–1842," December 2, 1942–January 3, 1943, no. 7.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Van Gogh as Critic and Self-Critic," October 30, 1973–January 6, 1974, no. 12.
New York Cultural Center. "William-Adolphe Bouguereau," December 13, 1974–February 2, 1975, no. 8.
San Francisco. California Palace of the Legion of Honor. "William-Adolphe Bouguereau," February 15–March 29, 1975, no. 8.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Samuel P. Avery: Pioneer American Art Dealer," September 11–October 31, 1979, unnumbered cat.
Naples. Castel Sant'Elmo. "Gauguin e la Bretagna," October 19, 2003–January 11, 2004, no. 5.
Paris. Musée du Luxembourg. "L'aventure de Pont-Aven et Gauguin," April 2–June 22, 2003, no. 5.
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Quimper. "L'aventure de Pont-Aven et Gauguin," July 12–September 30, 2003, no. 5.
Octave Lacroix C. Vendryes in Catalogue illustré des oeuvres de W. Bouguereau. Artistes modernes, 1, Paris, 1885, p. 46.
"The Fine Arts: Recent Gifts to the Metropolitan Museum." Critic (April 16, 1887), p. 194.
Clarence Cook. Art and Artists of Our Time. New York, 1888, vol. 1, p. 87.
Edward Strahan. Selected Pictures from Public and Private Collections in the United States. Philadelphia, 1888, p. 66.
Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings. New York, 1892, vol. 1, p. 189.
"The Metropolitan Museum of Art—The French Painters." New York Times (May 22, 1895), p. 4.
Marius Vachon. W. Bouguereau. Paris, 1900, pp. 91–92, 150.
Masters in Art: Bouguereau 7 (January 1906), p. 39, pl. VIII.
Charles Sterling and Margaretta M. Salinger. "XIX Century." French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2, New York, 1966, p. 174, ill.
Charles S. Moffett. Van Gogh as Critic and Self-Critic. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1973, unpaginated, no. 12.
Robert Isaacson. William-Adolphe Bouguereau. Exh. cat., New York Cultural Center. New York, 1974, p. 24, no. 8, ill.
"Talk of the Town: Bouguereau." New Yorker (November 25, 1974), p. 43.
Linda Whiteley. "Accounting for Tastes." Oxford Art Journal no. 2 (April 1979), pp. 27–28, ill.
Fronia E. Wissman. Bouguereau. San Francisco, 1996, p. 50, ill.
Rebecca A. Rabinow. "Catharine Lorillard Wolfe: The First Woman Benefactor of the Metropolitan Museum." Apollo 147 (March 1998), p. 50, fig. 12 (hanging in the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Gallery of the Museum about 1907).
André Cariou in L'aventure de Pont-Aven et Gauguin. Exh. cat., Musée du Luxembourg, Paris. Milan, 2003, pp. 18–9, 38–39, no. 5, ill. (color, overall and detail) [Italian ed., pp. 8–9, 28–29, no. 5, ill. (color, overall and detail)].
Rebecca A. Rabinow in Masterpieces of European Painting, 1800–1920, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2007, pp. 80, 216, no. 74, ill. (color and bw).
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