1872／Oil on canvas
116.0 x 87.5 cm
400 Years of Western Paintings – Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum –
Exhibition period：Saturday April 12～Sunday June 8, 2025
Nagoya City Art Museum (Aichi, Japan)
SUMMARY
The second half of the 19th century witnessed earthshaking changes in France, where even the art world also experienced a major shift toward a new era, including the first Impressionist exhibition (1874) that was held to compete against the Salon. Nonetheless, the Academy that called itself an orthodox school still remained to be influential. William Adolphe Bouguereau, a painter who represents the Academic Art of the time along with Alexandre Cabanel, is known as a conservative painter who denied the paintings by Manet and other Impressionists. The term “Bouguereauesque” was even used as an antonym of Impressionism. Bouguereau, who was a pupil of the neoclassical painter François-Édouard Pico, won the Prix de Rome in 1850, and exhibited outstanding masterpieces of historical and mythological paintings at the Salon. His style in which exquisite detailed depictions reproducing even a subtle light and shade and a refined matière stand out can be considered the ultimate in the academic techniques of realism. Bouguereau also created many genre paintings. From 1870 onwards, he came to paint a number of the stylized paintings, such as of a loving mother and child and of an adorable girl in an idyllic landscape. This is one of his idyllic paintings of a girl created during this period. It depicts a girl in a fishing village who carries a net over her left shoulder and holds a basket in her right hand. The seaside setting and the girl’s clothes look conservative, while the colors and patterns of the scarf on her head are only the bright element in this painting. Therefore, the eyes of viewers are spontaneously drawn to the graphic exposed parts of the girl’s skin including her face, neck, arms and hands which look fresh and smooth like the surface of porcelain. The depiction of a human body which could in a sense be photographic is a technique unique to Bouguereau.
ARTIST
William Adolphe Bouguereau
1825-1905
List of artworks by the same artist
INFORMATION
Saturday, April 12 - Sunday, June 8, 2025
400 Years of Western Paintings – Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum – Nagoya City Art Museum (Aichi, Japan)
Friday, July 26 - Monday, September 23, 2024
400 Years of Western Paintings – Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum – Shizuoka City Museum of Art (Shizuoka, Japan)
Saturday, September 17 - Sunday, November 20, 2022
400 Years of Western Paintings – Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum – Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design (Toyama, Japan)
Saturday, July 16 - Sunday, September 4, 2022
Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art (Kumamoto, Japan)
Saturday, March 19 - Sunday, May 8, 2022
Masterpieces of European Paintings From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Collection Saga Prefectural Art Museum (Saga, Japan)
Saturday, October 23 - Sunday, December 26, 2021
The 400 Years of Western Painting: Masterpieces From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts (Tochigi, Japan)
Friday, July 9 - Sunday, August 29, 2021
400 Years of European Paintings: Masterpieces From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art (Okayama, Japan)
Tuesday, December 15 - Sunday, January 31, 2021
How to Read Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Okinawa Prefectural Museum and Art Museum (Okinawa, Japan)
Saturday, September 12 - Tuesday, November 3, 2020
400 Years of Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Miyazaki Prefectural Art Museum (Miyazaki, Japan)
Wednesday, July 22 - Sunday, September 6, 2020
400 Years of Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Oita Prefectural Art Museum (Oita, Japan)
Thursday, February 20 - Sunday, April 12, 2020
How to Read Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum The Museum of Modern Art, Ibaraki (Ibaraki, Japan)
Tuesday, September 3 - Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Masterpieces of European Paintings From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Collection Yamaguchi Prefectural Art Museum (Yamaguchi, Japan)
Saturday, January 12 - Saturday, May 4, 2019
500 Years of Western Paintings: Collection of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Shanghai PowerLong Museum (Shanghai, China)
Tuesday, October 23 - Sunday, December 23, 2018
500 Years of Western Paintings: Collection of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Tsinghua University Art Museum (Beijing, China)
Saturday, April 29 - Sunday, June 25, 2017
The Collection of the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum: East and West Encounters Niihama City Museum of Art (Ehime, Japan)
Saturday, July 9 - Sunday, August 28, 2016
300 years of Western Painting from Baroque, Rococo to École de Paris Nagano Prefectural Shinano Art Museum (Nagano, Japan)
Saturday, June 27 - Sunday, August 30, 2015
Feast of beauty: 300 years of Western Painting From Baroque, Rococo to Ecole de Paris Yawatahama Citizen Gallery (Ehime, Japan)
Wednesday, April 29 - Sunday, June 21, 2015
Feast of beauty: 300 years of Western Painting From Baroque, Rococo to Ecole de Paris The Tokushima Modern Art Museum (Tokushima, Japan)
Saturday, July 9 - Monday, October 10, 2011
Painting Light Aomori Museum of Art (Aomori, Japan)
Saturday, October 24 - Sunday, December 20, 2009
The Intersection of Paintings and Photographs Nagoya City Art Museum (Aichi, Japan)
Saturday, August 1 - Sunday, September 27, 2009
The Intersection of Paintings and Photographs Matsumoto City Museum of Art (Nagano, Japan)
Saturday, June 6 - Monday, July 20, 2009
The Intersection of Paintings and Photographs Hiroshima Museum of Art (Hiroshima, Japan)
Saturday, April 4 - Sunday, May 24, 2009
The Intersection of Paintings and Photographs Sapporo Art Museum (Hokkaido, Japan)
Friday, January 30 - Wednesday, March 25, 2009
The Intersection of Paintings and Photographs Hokkaido Obihiro Museum of Art (Hokkaido, Japan)
Saturday, July 14 - Sunday, November 25, 2007
Impressionists and Its Sources: Monet, Renoir, and Barbizon Masters Musee d'art Mercian KARUIZAWA (Nagano, Japan)
Friday, August 1 - Sunday, August 31, 2003
A Great Masters of Impressionist and Modern Arts Iwate Prefectural Hall (Iwate, Japan)
Saturday, October 12 - Sunday, November 24, 2002
Impressionists and their epoch : from Monet to Cézanne The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama (Saitama, Japan)
Saturday, September 7 - Sunday, October 6, 2002
Impressionists and their epoch : from Monet to Cézanne Akita Museum of Modern Art (Akita, Japan)
Thursday, May 16 - Sunday, June 23, 2002
Four Centuries of Occidental Paintings from the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Collection Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art (Kumamoto, Japan)
Tuesday, October 14 - Sunday, November 30, 1997
Masterpieces of Western Oil Painting from the TFAM Collection Hong Kong Museum of Art (Hong Kong, China)
Friday, October 16 - Thursday, November 5, 1992
Masterpieces of European Oil Painting: The Paintings in 20th Century from the Renaissance to Impressionism China Art Gallery (Beijing, China)
Provenance: Goupil, Paris, no.6223 M. Maison, London Galerie Pekin, New York 1947 Hammer Galleries, New York 1956 Private Collection, Paris Hammer Galleries, New York
Literature: Marius Vachon, W. Bouguereau, Paris, 1990, p.151
EXPLORE
You can search and browse content on a platform across museums and archival institutions nationwide, and create My Gallery (online exhibition).
You can view the work in High-resolution.
The Official Navigator of the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum is voice-over artist, actress and vocalist Yoko Honna. She narrates the Japanese-language presentation and audio guidance segments of the works of Western paintings on display at our New Wing Permanent Gallery.
