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Artist or Maker: WILLIAM BOUGUEREAU, French, 1825-1905
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Dimensions: 44 3/4 by 34 in.
113.7 by 86.4 cm
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Provenance: PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION
Louis Marcotte de Quiviéres (acquired from the artist; sale Hôtel Drouot, Paris, April 24, 1875, as Joies maternelle )
George Whitney; sale, American Art Association, Inc., New York, December 16-18, lot 216
Richard & Cie. (acquired at the above sale)
T.T. Kinney; sale, American Art Association, Inc., New York, March 7, 1911, lot 46
Franklin Murphy, New York (acquired at the above sale)
Kende Galleries; sale, New York, December 12, 1946, lot 53, illustrated
Andrew L. Stone, Los Angeles (acquired from the above, December 1946)
Newhouse Gallery, New York (aquired from the above, October 1947)
Ransom Galleries, Oklahoma
Private Collection, October 1959
Sale, Sotheby's, New York, May 23, 1996, lot 137, illustrated
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Literature: L. Baschet, Catalogue illustr é des oeuvres de W. Bouguereau, Paris, 1885, p. 27, illustrated
M. Vachon, W. Bouguereau, Paris, Lahure, 1900, p. 147
Franqueville, William Bouguereau, 1864, p. 370
M. S. Walker, "William-Adolphe Bouguereau", in William-Adolphe Bouguereau L'Art Pompier, Borghi: New York, 1991, p. 66
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Notes: The present composition counts among the most fundamentally important works in Bouguereau's oeuvre during the 1860s. The extraordinary delicacy and flawlessness of the draughtsmanship lends a most tender interpretation of the mother and child theme. The classical rendering of the subject, the exquisite colors and the soft, palpable rendering of the flesh sets this work apart from so many other mother and child compositions.
In Marius Vachon's biography on William Bouguereau, he evokes the present composition, "in the premier hour, the paintings of the Italian masters reveal to the artist the beauty of youth, the seduction of a smile, the grace in simplicity. Above all, he [Bouguereau] paints young mothers with their children. This inexhaustible theme, always presented with new eloquence, inspired him to paint works of infinite charm, whose types were generally borrowed from Italian prototypes...In La Baiser, one sees a woman sitting on a stone bench, a small toddler kisses her tenderly, grateful for the orange that she just gave her..." (Cf. Marius Vachon, pp. 92-93, undoubtedly working from a black and white print as he confused the basin with a stone bench).
We are grateful to Damien Bartoli for providing this catalogue note (translated from the French). This painting will be included in the forthcoming Bouguereau catalogue raisonné being prepared by Damien Bartoli with the assistance of Fred Ross, The Bouguereau Committee and The American Society of Classical Realism.
