William Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825-1905)
Property of a Prince
William Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825-1905)

Admiration maternelle - le bain

细节
William Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825-1905)
Admiration maternelle - le bain
signed and dated 'W-BOVGVEREAV-1869' (upper center, below the molding on the hearth)
oil on canvas
51 1/8 x 39 ¼ in. (129.9 x 99.7 cm.)
来源
J. Wolfe (probably John Wolfe (1821-1894), New York).
M. Knoedler & Co., New York, acquired directly from the above, 29 May 1877, as Maternal Affection.
George Small (1825-1891), Baltimore, acquired directly from the above, 29 May 1879.
Mary Jackson Small, his wife, by descent.
Samuel Small, York, PA, her brother-in-law, by descent, by 1903.
George Small Schmidt, Sr., York, PA, by descent, by 1928.
George Small Schmidt, Jr., York, PA, by descent, by 1940.
Josephine F. Schmidt, York, PA, by descent from the above.
Her estate sale; Sotheby's, New York, 29 February 1984, lot 70.
with Borghi & Co., New York.
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner.
出版
E. Strahan, The art treasures of America being the choicest works of art in the public and private collections of North America, vol. III, Philadelphia, 1880, p. 78, as Maternal Admiration.
(possibly) M. Vachon, W. Bouguereau, Paris, 1900, p. 149 (Bouguereau painted another work also entitled Admiration maternelle in 1869 and it is unclear to which of these two works Vachon refers).
D. Bartoli and F. Ross, William Bouguereau: Catalogue Raisonné of his Painted Work, New York, 2010, pp. 124-125, no. 1869/23, illustrated.

拍品专文

'M. Bouguereau is a true artist, one of the most accomplished in Paris.'
-Edmond About, 1866

Beginning in 1865, Bouguereau became interested in themes of mothers and children and he began a series of paintings devoted to this subject matter. These classically-informed images were greatly influenced by his travels throughout Italy in the 1850s. Trekking from Naples all the way to Venice over a two year period, Bouguereau was frequently confronted by religious imagery, and he was particularly impressed with the works of Raphael. These images of mothers and children may have been further reinforced by the birth of the artist’s fourth child in 1868, a son named Adolphe Paul. It was also in this year that the artist moved his family into the house on rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, with its large studio on the top floor of the house.

Admiration maternelle – le bain, most likely painted in the artist’s studio in 1869, depicts a young Roman mother holding her naked baby on her lap. The baby clasps an orange before him, while his older sister looks on adoringly, her hands folded together as if in prayer. These three figures, clearly a secularized interpretation of a Holy Family or Madonna and Child with St. John, are bathed in a clear warm light which illuminates the freshly washed hair of the baby, creating a halo around his head and enhancing the association with the Christ Child. The bowl and washcloth occupy the immediate center of the composition, bringing to mind the chalice and cloth of the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The room behind the figural group is softened by the shadows of the recesses of the interior, thereby heightening the importance of the figural group.

There is a photograph in the Goupil Museum in Bordeaux and in Bouguereau’s own collection of what appears to be this work (Ross and Bartoli, 1869/02) without the linen towel and basin, a different bench and a slightly different background. It is possible that the initial purchaser of the painting asked for the changes to be made, as was the case with La Bohémienne, which also had two different backgrounds.

Admiration maternelle was in the collection of George Small of Baltimore by 1879, and remained in the Small family until 1984. George Small was the President of the Ashland Iron Company and a director of the Northern Central Railroad and the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad. He amassed a fortune, but he and his wife had no children, so the painting passed to his brother’s family upon his death in 1891.

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