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Lot Essay
Bouguereau had a particular interest in Italian subjects following his travels throughout Italy in the 1850s. Trekking from Naples all the way to Venice over a two-year period, Bouguereau found himself returning to subjects wearing Italian dress in the late 1850s and 1860s. The unusual Spanish dress in the present work has less precedent in the artist’s oeuvre, but is a beautiful example of Bouguereau’s mature style and may have also been inspired by a figure or costume he saw during his travels. The present work is above all else a study in light and shade, and the bravura rendering of the shadow on the sitter’s face as the light passes through her lace mantilla, and on her hands where it passes through the pierced sticks of her fan, is a beautiful example of Bouguereau’s skill in capturing carefully observed precise details.
The early provenance of the present work is complicated by the existence of another version of this same composition of similar dimensions, created by Bouguereau in the same year. The primary version is described as being in the form of an oval, and the figure’s earrings are apparently different as well, but until the other work reemerges (its present whereabouts are unknown), the provenance of both prior to 1900 cannot be fully clarified. For the present work, however, the provenance is clear from the early 20th century onward. Purchased by Elbert Henry Gary, one of the founders of US Steel along with J. P. Morgan, William H. Moore, Henry Clay Frick and Charles M. Schwab, it has passed by descent through his family since. It was apparently Frick who initially encouraged Gary to pursue art collecting.
The early provenance of the present work is complicated by the existence of another version of this same composition of similar dimensions, created by Bouguereau in the same year. The primary version is described as being in the form of an oval, and the figure’s earrings are apparently different as well, but until the other work reemerges (its present whereabouts are unknown), the provenance of both prior to 1900 cannot be fully clarified. For the present work, however, the provenance is clear from the early 20th century onward. Purchased by Elbert Henry Gary, one of the founders of US Steel along with J. P. Morgan, William H. Moore, Henry Clay Frick and Charles M. Schwab, it has passed by descent through his family since. It was apparently Frick who initially encouraged Gary to pursue art collecting.