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Lot Essay
Among Bouguereau's most desirable images are his sensitive depictions of young, virtuous peasant girls. The image of the peasant girl knitting started appearing in Bouguereau's work as early as 1869 with La tricoteuse (Joselyn Art Museum, Omaha) and he continued to explore this subject into the late 1890s. Painted with a high finish and meticulous attention to detail, these pictures conveyed an idealized view of the French peasant girl and promoted a belief in their innocence and innate beauty. Bouguereau was one of the foremost advocates of "Pompier" painting, and La petite tricoteuse exemplifies the canons central to the tenets of the movement, that art should promote civic messages such as purity of thought and hope. By choosing to depict a young peasant girl, Bouguereau celebrated the virtues of labor and the ignominy of poverty.
Bouguereau was a compulsive draughtsman whose final paintings derived from the numerous preliminary sketches he made of models and props within the confines of his Paris studio. Indeed, the model for La petite tricoteuse was a favorite of his during this period. The young girl was, according to a friend of the artist, an Italian gypsy, and is found in many of the works from this period, including Jeune fille couronnie de pampres (1874), Glaneuse, and Berghre dans les montagnes (1875). In the present painting, the young girl is posed seated at the base of a large tree, her feet crossed before her and gazing into the distance as if lost in thought. Bouguereau has overlooked no detail - the manner in which the fabric hangs on the young girl's skirt, the turn of her ankles and the way her hand clasps the ball of yarn tucked close to her body. Bouguereau was known to sketch drapery, hands and even ankles until he felt that he had understood the form properly and he would then incorporate these studies into his final paintings to achieve a sense of realism (see fig. 1). This meticulous attention to detail is apparent in the artist's treatment of the figure in La petite tricoteuse.
An old photograph of this painting, belonging to the Goupil gallery with the reference number 1687 is kept at the Musée Goupil in Bordeaux.
We are grateful to Damien Bartoli for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.
To be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné currently being prepared by Damien Bartoli with the assistance of Frederick Ross, the Bouguereau Committee and the American Society of Classical Realism.
fig. 1 William Adolphe Bouguereau Girl in Peasant Costume, seated, Arms folded, holding a Ball of Wool and Knitting Needles in her right hand, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Bouguereau was a compulsive draughtsman whose final paintings derived from the numerous preliminary sketches he made of models and props within the confines of his Paris studio. Indeed, the model for La petite tricoteuse was a favorite of his during this period. The young girl was, according to a friend of the artist, an Italian gypsy, and is found in many of the works from this period, including Jeune fille couronnie de pampres (1874), Glaneuse, and Berghre dans les montagnes (1875). In the present painting, the young girl is posed seated at the base of a large tree, her feet crossed before her and gazing into the distance as if lost in thought. Bouguereau has overlooked no detail - the manner in which the fabric hangs on the young girl's skirt, the turn of her ankles and the way her hand clasps the ball of yarn tucked close to her body. Bouguereau was known to sketch drapery, hands and even ankles until he felt that he had understood the form properly and he would then incorporate these studies into his final paintings to achieve a sense of realism (see fig. 1). This meticulous attention to detail is apparent in the artist's treatment of the figure in La petite tricoteuse.
An old photograph of this painting, belonging to the Goupil gallery with the reference number 1687 is kept at the Musée Goupil in Bordeaux.
We are grateful to Damien Bartoli for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.
To be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné currently being prepared by Damien Bartoli with the assistance of Frederick Ross, the Bouguereau Committee and the American Society of Classical Realism.
fig. 1 William Adolphe Bouguereau Girl in Peasant Costume, seated, Arms folded, holding a Ball of Wool and Knitting Needles in her right hand, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford