A standing female nude surrounded by doves

This drawing is likely to be a preliminary study for Bouguereau’s oil sketch Young woman with doves in the Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill (inv. 77.3.1; French nineteenth century oil sketches: David to Degas, exh. cat., Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill, 1978, no. 5). The composition of the oil sketch closely mirrors that of the drawing with minor changes made to the posture of the figure and in the arrangement of the doves which surround her. There is no known completed oil painting of the composition.

Bouguereau’s dedication is to Julius Mendes Price (1857-1924), an artist trained at the studio of Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.