William Bouguereau

Goupil et Cie., Paris (acquired directly from the artist, October 16, 1869, no. 4515)
M. Rooquard van der Ham, Soeterik, The Hague (acquired from the above, February 1870)
Private Collection, The Netherlands
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, February 13, 1985, lot 78, illustrated

Charles Vendryès, Dictionnaire illustré des Beaux-Arts: Bouguereau, Paris, 1885, p. 44
Franqueville, William Bouguereau, Paris, 1895, p. 149
Marius Vachon, W. Bouguereau, 1900, p. 149
William Bouguereau, exh. cat., Musée du Petit Palais, Paris; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, 1984, p. 119, fig. 51, illustrated
Mark Steven Walker, "William-Adolphe Bouguereau, A Summary Catalogue of the Paintings," William-Adolphe Bouguereau, L'Art Pompier, exh. cat., Borghi & Co., New York, 1992, p. 67
Damien Bartoli with Frederick Ross, William Bouguereau Catalogue Raisonné, Woodbrige, Suffolk, (forthcoming), vol. I, no. 1869/12, pl. 292, illustrated; vol. II, p. 118, illustrated

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting has been restored fairly recently. The canvas has been lined using wax as an adhesive. While this wax lining is reversible if required, it is supporting the canvas well at present. It is likely that the paint layer was restored at the same time that the canvas was lined. The retouches have been applied to a group of cracks above and to the right of the shoulder on the right of the picture. Elsewhere, except for a dot or two of retouch in the sky above the head and to a few cracks in the dark rocks directly to the left of the figure, there are no further retouches. This painting would benefit from having the thick varnish removed and the reversing the lining. More original texture would be acquired by the painting if this process were to be undertaken. However, the condition of this painting is extremely good.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

During his lifetime, William Bouguereau enjoyed an extraordinary level of commercial success, garnering dozens of wealthy patrons and devoted followers. This success was due in part to his exceptional skill as a draftsman and painter, but was also the product of his awareness of the popular tastes of the art buying public. In the 1850s, Bouguereau, at the encouragement of his dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, made the fortuitous decision to shift his choice of subjects, away from large religious commissions and toward the type of image easily consumed by his wealthy collectors. In particular, he embraced the late nineteenth century fascination with peasant life, focusing on beautiful young girls depicted in the countryside. The world he presented, however, was far rosier than the harsh realities endured by those dwelling outside the city.  Fronia Wissman writes: "Bouguereau and the well-to-do collectors who acquired his paintings preferred to see these children as picturesque outsiders, facts of daily life perhaps, but poignant rather than threatening" (Bouguereau, San Francisco, 1996, p. 51). Social accuracy was not Bouguereau's concern; instead his paintings demonstrate his profound skill and suggest timeless ideals of simplicity and wholesomeness, even innocence. In Le Crabe, painted between 1868 and 1869, Bouguereau shows a young fisher girl casually playing with a small black crab. Unlike Bouguereau's later paintings of peasant girls who confront the viewer with their arresting gazes, the child here is wholly occupied with toying with the small creature, unaware of any audience. Her strikingly lifelike hair falls upon her shoulders, also a variation from the majority of his subjects with their upswept locks. Like all of his peasant children, however, the young girl is depicted barefoot, her perfectly painted, unsoiled feet free from any signs of work or wear, symbols of her idealized existence.  

Le Crabe is rare in Bouguereau's body of work, featuring a vast coastal scene behind his more well-known imagery of the young peasant girl. The atmospheric beauty of the background showcases the artist's skills as a painter; his use of light and shadow accurately captures the dramatic recession into space. Bouguereau was likely inspired by the landscape of Brittany (possibly by the streams of Fouesnant) where he regularly spent the summer months from 1866 until the war of 1870. The model for the young girl is Emilienne Cesil-Biegler, the daughter of Bouguereau's housekeeper at the time.