William-Adolphe Bouguereau
1825-1905 | French

Enfant sur un monstre marin
(Child on a Sea Monster)

Signed “W.B.” (lower right)
Oil on panel

Captivating on its oval-shaped panel, William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s Enfant sur un monstre marin offers a charming mythological scene. A winged putto rests upon a sea monster with the head and hooves of a ram and the body of a serpentine fish. The gilded background above the rippling water creates an iconic quality to the image that harkens to the glory of art history. Hailing from a foundational moment in the artist’s illustrious career, the composition is a testament to Bouguereau’s adaptability as an artist and his unparalleled skill in rendering mythological subjects.

Enfant sur un monstre marin is further distinguished by prestigious provenance, originally created for the private Parisian residence of Émile and Isaac Pereire. The brothers were celebrated bankers and businessmen of the Second Empire, and remain dominant figures in the history of French finance and development. Their splendid home, known as the Hotel Pereire, was located on 35-37 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, where they amassed a remarkable art collection. Émile Pereire commissioned Bouguereau to decorate the residence’s reception room, dubbed the Salon du Jour et de la Nuit (“Salon of Day and Night”). The artist painted Enfant sur un monstre marin as one of two oval medallions to hang in the grand suite.

Deeply influenced by the great Neoclassical artist Ingres, Bouguereau’s painting technique created an unsurpassed degree of luminous skin pigmentation, hallmarks of his prestigious education at the École Royale des Beaux-Arts. His skillful handling of light and form displays a unique sensitivity, upholding a dedication to the timeless beauty of the Classical age. He was one of the most decorated artists of the 19th century and dominated the Salons of the Third Republic to such an extent that the event became known unofficially as “Le Salon Bouguereau.” He remains widely known for his mythological and religious subjects, like Enfant sur un monstre marin, which are considered his grandest achievements.

Bouguereau’s paintings can be found in the prestigious collections of dozens of museums, including the Museé d’Orsay in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the New Orleans Museum of Art. A pair of comparable oval-shaped panels with mythological scenes, exhibited by Bouguereau at the 1857 Paris Salon, reside today in the Cleveland Museum of Art. The present artwork appears in the Bouguereau catalogue raisonné as 1857/06C.

Painted 1857

Panel: 25” high x 34 5/8” wide
Frame: 33” high x 41 1/4” wide x 3 3/8” deep

Provenance:
Private Collection of Émile Pereire
Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 13 October 1993, lot 59
Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 20 April 2005, lot 66
Private Collection
M.S. Rau, New Orleans