Charles Edouard Boutibonne

The pursuit of good health mixed with innovative activity was a pastime of the late nineteenth century moneyed classes. Many of Boutibonne's  most celebrated paintings center on activites promoting a longer, more robust life.  In his The Young Mountaineers (Sold at Sotheby's, London, June 15, 2004, lot 189) a group of young lady tourists walk above a Swiss lake communing with nature to "take the air."  Often complimenting such vigorous alpine hikes was a restorative visit to a European spa to "take the waters," drinking from local, ancient mineral springs, as depicted in the present work. Thousands traveled long distances, spending countless hours in stuffy rail cars, pursuing the promise of "cure-all" waters from certain sacred sources.  Such quests were widely promoted by savvy businessmen like Britian's George Smith who, during a vacation in Germany in 1870, discovered Apollinaris water, naturally effervescent with a high mineral content, sourced from the Ahr Valley. Smith imported the water to England, where the Prince of Wales was a constant consumer (affectionately calling the water "Polly"), hoping to reap its known respiratory benefits (Alev Lytle Croutier, Taking the Waters, Spirit, Art, Sensuality, New York, 1992, pp.172-73).  Indeed, fashionable drinkers from Napoleon III to Queen Victoria were frequent patrons of the waters and Boutibonne's studio; he would have observed first hand the manners and mores of the British and European aristocracy and upper middle classes, who all wanted to visit the source of such powerful bides for themselves.

The beautiful women in Taking the Waters are excellent examples of the "drinking class", sampling what was often very salty, sulfured or steaming mineral water.  Groups like these well-dressed ladies in silk and swag would cluster around a spa's wells and fountains carrying glasses engraved with the resort's emblems, instructions on how much to drink, and the prescribed benefits of everything from ridding kidney stones to heart trouble to more beautiful skin and hair (Croutier, p.111).  In the present work, one woman shares her filled glass with a young companion who has dropped her flower-filled hat for a sip.  The second figure reaches out her glass, filling it to overflowing, from the splashing source while beside her an empty vessel perches ready for use on a nearby shelf. Sunlight fills the space, dappling over the water, infusing the scene with warmth and vitality.

Such stylish women were commonly seen throughout Europe's  numerous spa towns, strolling the pathways of the great gardens and corridors of the grand spa palaces. Elegant tasting rooms, pleasure gardens, villas, palatial thermal establishments, grand hotels and casinos were elaborately decorated with rare marble, flashy gold, and other fine materials.  Linking the diverse establishments was the consistent emphasis on youth and the suggested promise of immortality.  Allegorical figures were often central to a spa's marketing and, in particular, the goddess Aphrodite was linked with taking the waters.  Born from sea foam on a scallop shell, the fountain of Boutibonne's work is clearly modeled after the goddess of love.  Fellow contemporary artists from Ingres to Bouguereau to the Pre-Raphaelites often depicted a young woman or goddess-figure with a jug or barrel from which water flowed symbolizing fertility and vitality.  When not painting fashionable ladies, Boutibonne often turned to mermaids, water spirits, and other nubile bathers to demonstrate the alluring possibilities of magical waters.  Indeed in the artist's present work, the exchange of water from stone, Aphrodite to ivory skinned young lady to pink-cheeked girl, suggests the multiple meaning of Taking the Waters, from chic health craze to the ancient lure of eternal youth and beauty.