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Admiration
Artist:
William-Adolphe Bouguereau
(French, 1825 - 1905)
Culture: French
Date: 1897
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
58 x 78 in. (147.3 x 198.1 cm)
Credit Line: Bequest of Mort D. Goldberg
Object number: 59.46.10
Provenance: sold by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) to Arthur Tooth & Sons, London, about 1900; with Freres Tedesco, Paris, by 1900; consigned by Tooth & Sons to M. Knoedler & Co., Paris, stockbook no. 10397, by 1903; sold to Felix Isman (1873-1943), Philadelphia, 1903; sold by Felix Isman to M. Knoedler & Co., New York, stockbook no. 10410, 1903; sold by M. Knoedler & Co. to Henry Octavius Seixas (d. 1911), New York, 1904; sold by Moulton & Ricketts, Chicago to Charles Gerard Conn (1844-1931), Elkhart, after 1904; with Moulton and Ricketts, Chicago, by 1911; Joe Snydicker or Snydecker, Chicago; Robert Graham Dunn (1826-1900), New York; Clarence L. Dillon (1882-1979), Milwaukee and Chicago; with M. Knoedler, New York, stockbook no. 12589S, 1911; sold by M. Knoedler to Moulton & Ricketts, Chicago, 1912; N.A. Kauffman, Congress Hotel, Chicago, 1912; Mort D. Goldberg (d. 1959), San Antonio, by 1942; Mort D. Goldberg, by bequest to Witte Museum/San Antonio Art Association, 1959; by transfer to San Antonio Museum of Art, 1994
Published References
Armes, Steve, Kirk Richards, Stephen Gjertson. "In the Studios of Paris: William Bouguereau and his American Students." Salon America Journal 1.1 (2007): 18-29.
Armando Reveron: El Lugar de los Objetos. Fundacion Galeria de Arte Nacional, Venezuela, Caracas: 2001.
Paul, Tanya and Stanton Thomas. Bouguereau and America, exh. cat. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), 2019: 164-167
Stuart, Evelyn Marie. "Public Palaces and their Art Treasures," Fine Arts Journal 35, no. 10 (October 1917): 34-48 (ill.)
Label Text
"Admiration" was awarded the highest honors in the Salon of 1899, when Bouguereau was at the height of his fame. "Admiration" represents a somewhat simplified version of "The Offering of Love," one of the artist's most influential Salon paintings. Instead of the seven figures in the original composition, this version shows five beautiful, idealized women surrounding the coy figure of Cupid who stands on the ground. The painting was enormously successful and was praised by both writers and viewers. Bouguereau often completed studies of the heads, feet, and hands of the models included in his compositions, and with phenomenal virtuosity almost without precedent, was able to complete these detailed, realistic studies in only a few hours. Frequently, he was able to reproduce figure studies directly onto the canvas in finished version. Some later critics denegrated the glossy finish and sentimentality of the work, but it remains a perfect example of late-nineteenth-century academic painting in the grand tradition of Raphael, Ingres, and the French Salon.
On view
In Collection(s)
The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.
This resource has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor.
