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Lot Essay
Tête d'enfant is a study for an important Parisian book titled La tasse de lait (The Cup of Milk) published in 1879. The smaller dimensions of the canvas and the rapidly painted background of the this painting point to the fact that Bouguereau used the canvas as a study for a larger picture, a practice the artist customarily employed for all his important paintings.
Bouguereau kept these preparatory works neatly filed in his studio, and he would repeatedly return to certain studies, reworking their surfaces. To the present study, Bouguereau added a heavenly background composed of pale blues and whites, in order to highlight the little girl's angelic face and also to cover any evidence of the priming materials on the canvas. The artist also signed and dated this canvas, probably in order to donate it to a charity auction, as was his practice with many of the finished studies.
This small painting did not travel along the usual route to market as most of Bouguereau's oeuvre, and was not given to the artist's dealer Goupil, with whom he had an exclusive relationship. According to Charles Vrendryes, this work was destined to the Mouchot sale, however it seems far more likely that Bouguereau offered it to the Thirion Sale to which the artist dedicated a lot of time and energy during the first half of 1879. The artist encouraged his friends and many of his contacts in the art world in order to get donations to this charity which would be sold in order to benefit widow and children of his friend Victor Thirion, who died in April of 1878. The charity sale took place on May 8th, 1879.
Bouguereau kept these preparatory works neatly filed in his studio, and he would repeatedly return to certain studies, reworking their surfaces. To the present study, Bouguereau added a heavenly background composed of pale blues and whites, in order to highlight the little girl's angelic face and also to cover any evidence of the priming materials on the canvas. The artist also signed and dated this canvas, probably in order to donate it to a charity auction, as was his practice with many of the finished studies.
This small painting did not travel along the usual route to market as most of Bouguereau's oeuvre, and was not given to the artist's dealer Goupil, with whom he had an exclusive relationship. According to Charles Vrendryes, this work was destined to the Mouchot sale, however it seems far more likely that Bouguereau offered it to the Thirion Sale to which the artist dedicated a lot of time and energy during the first half of 1879. The artist encouraged his friends and many of his contacts in the art world in order to get donations to this charity which would be sold in order to benefit widow and children of his friend Victor Thirion, who died in April of 1878. The charity sale took place on May 8th, 1879.