At age 27, William Bouguereau began work on the present self-portrait in early November 1852 while nearing the end of his stay in Rome, which had been a profound, foundational experience in his career. In 1850, Bouguereau was awarded the Prix de Rome, providing him the opportunity to travel and study throughout Italy. Upon Bouguereau’s arrival at the Villa Medici (the Roman base of the French Academy) in January 1851, he was met by fellow artists such as Alexandre Cabanel, architects like Charles Garnier, as well as sculptors and engravers. Training was demanding and expectations were high for artists in residence, and in response Bouguereau developed the rigorous, almost fanatical working habits that awed colleagues, patrons, and critics throughout his career. Through his exploration of Italy, the artist filled numerous sketch books and canvases with copies of Renaissance masterpieces, detailed drawings of ancient artifacts, and colorful landscapes of idyllic hill towns and lake regions. These invaluable, copious studies required an organizational system of portfolios to use in the advanced planning of the artist’s envois, required paintings to be sent back to Paris for exhibition both to demonstrate and invite critique of progress. Bouguereau would typically work on several compositions at once, for hours without a rest, and around the t.mes he was painting the present self-portrait, he was also copying Raphael’s fresco of Galatea (circa 1853, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon) in the Villa Farnesina, a drawing of Lazare dans le sein d’Abraham et le Riche aux enfers and his expansive oil Combat des Centaures et des Lapithes (fig. 1, Virginia Museum of Replica Handbags s, Richmond).
Right: Fig. 3, William Bouguereau, Self-Portrait, oil on canvas, 1879, Purchase, Horsley and Annie Townsend Bequest, inv. 1984.16, The Montreal Museum of Replica Handbags s
Bouguereau’s indefatigable efforts in Italy earned him the nickname “Sisyphus,” and his determination and talent are captured in his self-portrait. The focused gaze and pressed lips, soft skin and subtle shadow of a growing goatee portray the maturing artist at a pivotal moment in his career; while his enovis met with mixed reviews in Paris his immense promise was undeniable.1 While the artist painted more than 100 formal portraits throughout his career, only seven self-portraits are known. He completed the first in 1850, and soon after the present work, the artist would paint another toward the end of his residency at the Villa Medici in 1854 (fig. 2). It was not until 1879 that the artist returned to self-portraiture, to mark his engagement to Elizabeth Gardner and for the last t.mes in 1895, the seventy-year-old giving his portrait as a gift to the Uffizi, Florence (fig. 3.). Portraiture was among the first genres the artist attempted in the mid-1840s, when he was in his early twenties and living with his uncle Eugène, a priest in the small city of Charente-Marit.mes . In order to raise funds for his impending move to Paris and enrollment at the École des Beaux-Arts, Bouguereau used his uncle’s connections to secure early portrait commissions from local residents. While at the École, Bouguereau competed in the Tête d’expression competition, an annual event that required students to paint a life-size head over three sessions each lasting six hours and won with his painting: Tête d’expression: Le dédain (fig. 4, 1850, and still in the school’s museum collects ion). Set against a shadowed background and bathed in light, the downcast eyes, pursed lips, and tense shoulders immediately convey the disdainful mood of the sitter.2 Similarly, in the present work (dedicated to his friend Jean-Marie Croizet) Bouguereau’s use of line and color to define shape and form invites the viewer to interpret the artist’s inner life, particularly as the romantic energy and intensity of the portrait is somewhat rare in his oeuvre. In this evocative self-portrait Bouguereau anticipates his later belief that “for me a work of art must be an elevated interpretation of Nature…. In portraiture, I want to capture the intellect of my model” while also recognizing the necessity to balance the real with the ideal “what I call interpreting nature.” 3
1 See: Bouguereau & America, eds. T. Paul and S. Thomas, exhibition catalogue, Milwaukee ARt Museum, 2019, p. 78.
2 F. C. Ross and K. L. Ross, William Bouguerau, the Essential Works, New York, 2018, p. 51.
3 P. Boutigny, “Salon de 1901: Les artistes critiqués par eux-mêmes,” Cocorico, 15 May 1901, p. 78; Eugène Tardieu, “La Peinture et les peintres,” L’Echo de Paris, 8 May 1895, n.p. both as quoted in William Bouguereau 1825-1905, exhibition catalogue, The Montreal Museum of Replica Handbags
s, 1984, p. 246.
