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Lot Essay
In the years following the siege of Paris, Bouguereau’s work was in such demand the artist could not keep up. Having volunteered to join the National Guard during the Franco-Prussian War and left Paris to wait out the Siege with his family in La Rochelle, the artist had gone months without producing new work. As he returned to Paris and life began to return to normal, Bouguereau was beset by requests for new pictures from his dealer, clients, and friends, but despite working at a fever pitch he could not keep up with the demand. This perhaps explains the number of small canvases and head studies, like the present work, found in the artist’s oeuvre in the early years of the 1870s. These smaller paintings depict the same models who appear in larger works from this period, often in the same or similar costume, so they could be produced quickly alongside the larger canvases. The young model with the distinctive heart-shaped face wearing a crown of grape leaves in the present work also appears in two other works from 1874, including one where she is harvesting grapes while wearing the same distinctive red scarf but without the grape leaves (now in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek). She would appear in eight further works by Bouguereau the following year.
Italianate subjects were much on Bouguereau’s mind in 1874, as one of the works he exhibited at that year’s Salon was Italiennes à la fontaine (present whereabouts unknown). He also painted Italienne portant des grappes de raisin (present whereabouts unknown), in which a model, who also appears in Italiennes à la fontaine, wears the same costume, and also the crown of grape leaves that appears in the present work. The themes of fertility and abundance inherent in this harvest subject matter may reflect the artist’s own optimism in the post-war years as well. The dramatic broad green leaves of the girl’s crown are beautifully set off against the simple white background, and her direct gaze and unidealized expression lack the sentimentality of many of Bouguereau’s other works of this same period.
Italianate subjects were much on Bouguereau’s mind in 1874, as one of the works he exhibited at that year’s Salon was Italiennes à la fontaine (present whereabouts unknown). He also painted Italienne portant des grappes de raisin (present whereabouts unknown), in which a model, who also appears in Italiennes à la fontaine, wears the same costume, and also the crown of grape leaves that appears in the present work. The themes of fertility and abundance inherent in this harvest subject matter may reflect the artist’s own optimism in the post-war years as well. The dramatic broad green leaves of the girl’s crown are beautifully set off against the simple white background, and her direct gaze and unidealized expression lack the sentimentality of many of Bouguereau’s other works of this same period.