Fig 1. Willam Bouguereau, Decoration of the Chapel of Saint Louis (left wall) at Sainte-Clotilde, Paris

While perhaps best remembered for the paintings of peasant children demanded by his dealers and international patrons, William Bouguereau received important decorative commissions throughout his career. In 1854, soon after returning to Paris from Rome, completing the travel afforded to him by winning the Prix de Rome, he was tasked with painting the ceilings for Etienne Bartholoni’s elegant Paris hôtel, which led to opportunities to decorate public buildings — an important part of any academically trained artist’s oeuvre. While not financially lucrative, public works garnered publicity: the commissions were the result of a rigorous and competitive selection process and the finished, often large-scale works were widely accessible. In particular, church decoration had personal resonance to devoted Catholic Bouguereau, who painted the decorations for four churches, the first for the Basilique Sainte-Clotilde. Located in Paris’ 7th arrondissement, Sainte-Clotilde’s construction began in 1846 under the direction of architect François-Christian Gau and, following his death in 1853, was completed by Théodore Ballu. Upon its consecration in 1857, Sainte-Clotilde was the first major church to be built in a Gothic style in Paris in the nineteenth century, and its design evolved from Gau’s somewhat severe conception to Ballu’s vision, which included a complex internal program. 190,000 francs were reserved for the painting of the chapels, assigned to three artists, Henri de Laborde, Henri Lehmann, and François Picot, who was responsible for the five chapels of the choir dedicated to Saint Louis, the Holy Cross, The Virgin, Saint Joseph and Saint Rémi. Faced with such a large commission, by 1856 Picot invited his students, including Bouguereau, to take on the campaign while he served a supervisorial role for the project, which recalled the Italian trecento, particularly Giotto. Bouguereau was assigned the Saint Louis chapel walls which, like the others, were divided into three horizontal sections: the lower and middle sections depicted an episode from the given narrative, and the upper section featured allegorical figures within painted arcades (fig. 1). Bouguereau prepared extensively, using a large number of sketches for the principle ideas and oil studies for the narrative panels, which detailed scenes from the life of Saint Louis, King Louis IX (1214-1270) —the only king of France to be canonized in the Catholic Church thanks to his religious Crusades and devotion to charity to the poor. The present two oil sketches correspond to the left and right walls of the Chapel of Saint Louis; the left-hand side of the campaign exalts Saint Louis’ peacetime virtues of justice and piety, while the right shows his wartime heroism. While the sketches overall resemble the finished work, there are a few notable changes: the left-hand side sketch’s lower panel, which shows Saint Louis captured at the Battle of Mansourah, was replaced for a scene of Saint Louis bringing the Crown of Thorns into Paris; on the right, the order of the middle and lower panels is reversed. While other details differ, the studies vividly illustrate Bouguereau’s adherence to Picot’s inspiration, the stylized figures with long folds of sculptural drapery are arranged against stylized backgrounds of bright blue to create a planarity similar to the Italian frescoes. The reserved, archaic quality of the composition reduces the Saint Louis narrative to its most essential and powerful elements. When Bouguereau completed his decorations in 1859, he was still in his mid-thirties, and the Chapel of Saint Louis is a testament to his early understanding of the power of public decoration and the development of his indelible visual vocabulary (fig 2, 3).1

Left: Fig. 2, William Bouguereau, Saint Louis Dispensing Justice (Chapel of Saint Louis, middle panel, left wall)

Right: Fig. 3, William Bouguereau, Saint Louis Caring for the Sick (Chapel of Saint Louis, middle panel, right wall)

1 G. Brunel, “Bouguereau the Decorator of Parisian Churches,” in William Bouguereau 1825-1905, exhibition catalogue, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1984, pp. 83-90.