William-Adolphe BouguereauFrench, 1825–1905The Dance
May one see it?
Unknown: the museum keeps its counsel
Musée d'Orsay
Paris, France
The owner is known. Whether it is on view today, the museum does not say, and we were not trained to guess.
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum's own collection data
About the painting
La Danse (English: The Dance) is an oil-on-canvas painting created by the French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau in 1856. The painting is currently held in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
The work, commissioned in 1855 by Anatole Bartholoni to decorate a living room at his Paris hotel, represents dance in an allegorical manner. Other canvases in the set are held at the United States Embassy in Paris. It was exhibited at the Salon of 1857.
The canvas was donated by Captain Peter Moore to the National Museums for the Musée d'Orsay in 1981. It was then attributed to the Musée du Louvre, which finally assigned it to the Musée d'Orsay the same year.
Particulars
- Accession number
- RF 1981 33
In the catalog
Sources
- Wikidata · fetched 7 days ago
- Image: Musée d'Orsay — William-Adolphe Bouguereau · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Meanwhile, in the life of William-Adolphe Bouguereau
The whole life1851–1854
Through Italy with Curzon: copies of Raphael, Titian, Assisi
At the French Academy in Rome Bouguereau meets G. Boulanger and J. Lenepveu, but becomes closest friends with the landscape painter P. Curzon; together they make many journeys through Italy — Naples, Pompeii, Siena, Perugia, Assisi, Florence, Pisa, Milan, Ravenna. Bouguereau visits almost all the museums and private collections, copies ancient Roman monuments, makes a replica of the complete cycle of frescoes in the basilica of San Francesco in Assisi, and copies Raphael’s “Triumph of Galatea” and Titian’s “Triumph of Flora”.
1851–1854
His tastes and the “discovery” of Giotto
In Italy Bouguereau’s tastes take shape: he names Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo as his chief authorities, finds Botticelli too “nervous”, counts Correggio among the geniuses but denies that status to Mantegna, whom he finds “soulless”. In Padua and Assisi he immerses himself in Giotto and discovers in his gestures and faces a link between Proto-Renaissance painting and French gallant painting of the eighteenth century — a “discovery” that will shape his work for the rest of his life and shows in two paintings called “Idyll” (1850 and 1851), reminiscent of Rococo pastorals.
after 1854
After Rome: decorating churches and mansions
On finishing his stay in Rome Bouguereau receives commissions to decorate churches — the life of Saint Louis for a chapel, the lives of Saints Peter and Paul and of John the Baptist for the Parisian church of Saint-Augustin — and the mansions of A. Bartholoni and E. Pereire, for the first of which he paints “Arion on a Sea Horse” and “Bacchante”. These works demonstrate his undoubted ability for monumental painting.
1856
Marie-Nelly Monchablon: a secret liaison with a model
In 1856 Bouguereau begins living with one of his models, the 19-year-old Marie-Nelly Monchablon: the couple keep their liaison secret and live together unmarried, and their first child, Henriette, is born in April 1857. They will marry only on 24 May 1866, and quietly, since many assumed they were already married (other accounts say he married as early as 1856).
1857
The Salon of 1857: a medal, Gautier and Napoleon III’s commissions
The works Bouguereau shows at the Salon of 1857 arouse the enthusiasm of Théophile Gautier and win a medal of honour, above all for the decoration of the Bartholoni mansion. Commissions from Emperor Napoleon III follow: in 1857 an official commission for “The Emperor Visiting the Victims of the Flood at Tarascon in June 1856” (other accounts say the ministry gave this commission in 1856).
late 1850s
Paul Durand-Ruel and genre pictures
His growing family needs a steady income, and it comes from his acquaintance with the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, later the champion of the Impressionists: through him Bouguereau also meets Hugues Merle, who is later often compared with him. Small genre pictures — women in folk costume, family scenes — are in demand, predominate in Durand-Ruel’s own collection and open a new direction in Bouguereau’s work.
