Signed and dated lower right: W. Bouguereau - 1888

Sold by Bouguereau to Paris-based American dealer Charles Warren Cram (4 rue Auber, Paris); Collection of John Joseph Albright, Buffalo, New York, purchased from the above, October 7, 1888 (18,000F) as Bergère tricotant (Sherpherdess knitting); Newhouse Gallery, New York (with title Daydreams); Mr. Amon G. Carter, Sr., Fort Worth, Texas, purchased from the above by January 1953; Mr. and Mrs. Amon G. Carter, Jr., Fort Worth, Texas, [probable wedding] gift from the above, January 1953-2022; Thence by descent to the present owner, 2022 to present.

William Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825-1905) Bergère (Shepherdess), 1888 Oil on canvas 45-1/2 x 32-1/2 inches (115.6 x 82.6 cm) Signed and dated lower right: W. Bouguereau - 1888 Property from the Estate of Mrs. Amon G. Carter, Jr., Fort Worth, Texas PROVENANCE: The artist; Charles Warren Cram, Paris, acquired from the above, 1888; John Joseph Albright, Buffalo, New York, acquired from the above, 1888 (as Bergère tricotant); Newhouse Gallery, New York (as Daydreams); Mr. Amon G. Carter, Sr., Fort Worth, Texas, acquired from the above by 1953; Mr. and Mrs. Amon G. Carter, Jr., Fort Worth, Texas, [probable wedding] gift from the above, 1953; Thence by descent to the present owner. LITERATURE: Bouguereau's accounts, 1888 (as Bergère accroupie); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Thomas J. Watson Library Digital Collections, "Charles Warren Cram Papers, Receipt from William Bouguereau to 'Monsieur Cram,'" Paris, October 30, 1888, no. b1720158; Braun and Clément, Oeuvres choisies des maitres anciens et modernes, no. 3202, illustrated (as Bergère); M. Vachon, William Bouguereau, Paris, 1900, p. 156 (as Bergère); M. S. Walker, William Bouguereau – A Summary Catalogue of the Paintings, New York, 1991, p. 73; D. Bartoli and F. Ross, William Bouguereau. Catalogue Raisonné of His Painted Work, New York and Woodbridge, New Jersey, 2010, vol. II, p. 249, no. 1888/09, illustrated. The highlight of this season's Fine European Art Auction is a painting once owned by two great American "museum makers." Bergère (Shepherdess), an exceptional 1888 oil on canvas by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, was formerly in the personal collections of both John Joseph Albright (1848-1931), who made his fortune in coal and shipping, and founded the Albright Art Gallery (later the Albright-Knox) in Buffalo, New York, and Amon G. Carter, Sr. (1879-1955), creator and publisher of the Fort-Worth Telegram and progenitor of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas. The legacy Amon Carter left in his will enabled his daughter, Ruth Carter Stevenson, to establish a museum in his name. Albright and Carter both developed a keen eye for art over the course of their lives. While Albright was drawn most passionately to Barbizon painting, and Carter to Western American art by the likes of Charles Russell and Frederic Remington, both were exactly aligned in their appreciation of Bouguereau's Bergère (Shepherdess) with its miraculous level of verisimilitude. The Frenchman's consummate skill as a realistic figure painter earned him enormous success at home, with top prizes at the Salon, official awards from the Academy, the Legion of Honor from the French government, and streams of clients waiting feverishly for works as soon as – and sometimes even before – they were completed. Bouguereau's talents appealed just as strongly to wealthy American collectors like Albright and Carter, particularly since the artist's level of academic rigor and his porcelain surfaces were seldom equaled by painters in the United States. Indeed, as the preeminent neoclassical painter of the later nineteenth century, Bouguereau created luminous nudes cloaked in the guise of various mythologies, irresistible images of childhood innocence, and, during the latter part of his career, rustic genre scenes featuring handsome peasants, notably shepherdesses such as the young woman in the present work. Bergère, a very fine example of Bouguereau's work from this later phase, depicts a placid young woman sitting in a grassy, moody landscape while holding a darning needle and gazing off just to the right of the viewer's sightline. This pensive moment is captured with the realism of a photograph and the ineffable poetry that flows from the artist's hand. Bouguereau portrays her with a quiet nobility, enveloped by the natural environment where she lives and carries out her daily work. The painting is in beautiful condition, with its glazes preserved. Bouguereau's celebrated skill as a figure draftsman is particularly notable in the complex positions of the shepherdess's hands and feet. Moreover, where the girl's skin is thinnest – on the tops of her feet, on her forearms, and on her forehead – the artist masterfully creates a sense of translucency, revealing the hint of bluish veins and structure beneath. Certain details are worth examining closely; for example, the girl's hands are slightly darker than her feet, having had greater exposure to the sun during her labors. Remarkably, Bouguereau's original handwritten receipt for the inaugural sale of this painting survives in the papers of the Paris-based American art dealer Charles Warren Cram (1840-1891), who sold the painting to Albright. It is preserved in the Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (record number b1720158) and gives Bouguereau's original title as Bergère tricotant (Shepherdess knitting). (Curiously, Bouguereau's account books record yet another title for the painting: Bergère Accroupie (Kneeling shepherdess)). Bouguereau's receipt reads: "Reçu de Monsieur Cram pour le compte de Monsieur J. J. Albright la somme de Dix huit mille francs (18,000 fr) montant du tableau "Bergère tricotant." [Received from Mr. Cram on behalf of Mr. J. J. Albright the sum of Eighteen thousand francs for the painting "Shepherdess knitting."] Paris le 30 Octobre 1888 Wm Bouguereau Less than two months later, in December 1888, Bouguereau wrote to Cram at his rooms at 4 rue Auber to try and help him arrange a studio visit for Mr. Albright and his companions. From the brief note, also preserved in the Cram papers, it seems Albright had likely already taken possession of a completed Bergère, for there was no mention of wanting to see its progress as a work purchased in advance, and simply wanted to meet the artist personally. By the 1880s, the official tastes of the Paris Salon were shifting and beginning to embrace the artistic idea of Naturalism, which focused on subjects drawn from everyday life, notably peasants working the land, rather than more esoteric literary subjects such as history painting and mythologies. An astute businessman as well as a gifted artist, Bouguereau paid close attention to this shift in taste and began producing many rustic genre scenes that proved immensely popular with collectors, including variations on his shepherdess theme expressed in the present work. Unlike other Naturalists, or Realists, such as Millet and Courbet whose views of peasants and laborers often veered into the realm of pointed social criticism, Bouguereau offered a more idealized and serene view of rural life, focusing on the nobility of working the land, living close to nature, and enjoying a simpler, less complicated life. For these peasant subjects, Bouguereau's surfaces retained the high level of finish and polish that had made his reputation, rather than opting for the brushier, coarser paint application that characterized other Realists' work. Bouguereau had a preferred "type" for the protagonists in shepherdess paintings: dark brown hair, large dark eyes, olive complexion. Indeed, his models for most of his shepherdesses were Italian immigrant girls he hired to pose for him during his family summers at La Rochelle. The girls received a monthly salary, participated in household chores, and ate meals with the artist and his family. Interestingly, while Bouguereau never embraced the transformative movement of Impressionism – a style that eschewed the arsenal of technical wizardry upon which he had built his eminent career – he was exceptionally progressive in one very important regard: artistic education. He had a passion for mentoring young artists at the Académie Julian, a school famous for low fees, no entrance exams, and for enthusiastically encouraging the training of women artists, throngs of whom were instructed by Bouguereau himself. HID12401132022 © 2022 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved

Framed Dimensions 53.5 X 40 X 3.75 Inches