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Lot Essay
This extraordinary painting has today become one of the most renowned and representative works by Bouguereau. Its likeness can be found on clothing and household objects, on posters or gracing many shop windows throughout the world.
No where else in the Bouguereau's oeuvre can one find an ensemble, a pose, a couple as tender or as removed from the turmoil of the century. In L'Amour et Psyche, enfants, the viewer is thrust into the marvellous and lyrical world that only Bouguereau could create where everything is sweetness, joy and tenderness; a mysterious world with its own rules and conventions.
Marius Vachon justly wrote, "Few artists of our time have represented childhood with more tenderness charm and spirit than W. Bouguereau. By expressing the navety, the malice, the smiles and the caresses of these dear little beings, by painting the pink and white flesh, the shiny heads of hair, the attitudes and gestures, in such a simple, ingenious and gracious way he has been able to invent the most aimiable, picturesque and original scenes and with a diversity...
Our painting is dated 1890 but was in fact painted in 1889. It is part of a category of painting that Bouguereau cherished and referred to as Fantaisies. Our painting represents an Bouguereau's interpretation of the capture of Psyche by Love, a theme which Bouguereau gave great importance throughout his career. Unlike the three large paintings that Bouguereau would later paint in a style that followed a more classical interpretation of the legend, the two lovers in our work are not depicted as youths, but as young children aged three and five.
The present picture should be considered as the successor to the famous painting L'Amour vainqueur painted in 1887 and exhibited at the Salon the same year.
This extraordinary painting has today become one of the most renowned and representative works by Bouguereau. Its likeness can be found on clothing and household objects, on posters or gracing many shop windows throughout the world.
This painting will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonn on Bouguereau by Damien Bartoli and Gaydon Parrish. We are grateful to Damien Bartoli for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.
Fig. 21 Bouguereau at his easel, La Rochelle studio, 1898. (Photo: William Bouguereau, 1825-1905, Montreal, 1984, p. 70)
No where else in the Bouguereau's oeuvre can one find an ensemble, a pose, a couple as tender or as removed from the turmoil of the century. In L'Amour et Psyche, enfants, the viewer is thrust into the marvellous and lyrical world that only Bouguereau could create where everything is sweetness, joy and tenderness; a mysterious world with its own rules and conventions.
Marius Vachon justly wrote, "Few artists of our time have represented childhood with more tenderness charm and spirit than W. Bouguereau. By expressing the navety, the malice, the smiles and the caresses of these dear little beings, by painting the pink and white flesh, the shiny heads of hair, the attitudes and gestures, in such a simple, ingenious and gracious way he has been able to invent the most aimiable, picturesque and original scenes and with a diversity...
Our painting is dated 1890 but was in fact painted in 1889. It is part of a category of painting that Bouguereau cherished and referred to as Fantaisies. Our painting represents an Bouguereau's interpretation of the capture of Psyche by Love, a theme which Bouguereau gave great importance throughout his career. Unlike the three large paintings that Bouguereau would later paint in a style that followed a more classical interpretation of the legend, the two lovers in our work are not depicted as youths, but as young children aged three and five.
The present picture should be considered as the successor to the famous painting L'Amour vainqueur painted in 1887 and exhibited at the Salon the same year.
This extraordinary painting has today become one of the most renowned and representative works by Bouguereau. Its likeness can be found on clothing and household objects, on posters or gracing many shop windows throughout the world.
This painting will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonn on Bouguereau by Damien Bartoli and Gaydon Parrish. We are grateful to Damien Bartoli for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.
Fig. 21 Bouguereau at his easel, La Rochelle studio, 1898. (Photo: William Bouguereau, 1825-1905, Montreal, 1984, p. 70)