William Bouguereau

Estate of Mrs. Doris Borden Leonard, Rumsen, New Jersey (and sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 23, 1985, lot 68, illustrated)

Marius Vachon, W. Bouguereau, Paris, 1900, p. 159

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting is glue lined, with some areas of stable craquelure. Under the ultraviolet light there are a few retouches to her cheek, on the right side of her nose, and to the left side of her chest. Despite the milky varnish, there doesn't seem to be any retouches to the background.
"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."

In La Liseuse Bouguereau features a young peasant girl sitting on a simple stone bench, one schoolbook open in her hands and a small pile of others by her side. Many artists in the nineteenth century created idealized images of the simple, honest life of the peasant as a form of reassurance in the rapidly industrializing modern world. Every summer Bouguereau would travel to the country and after months of relentless painting, bring back six to eight finished canvases. He found his young models, including the present one, in towns such as La Rochelle, a seaport in western France on the Bay of Biscay. La Rochelle had strong personal associations for the artist, as not only the place of his birth, but also the town where he chose to spend the last years of his life. The model featured here appears in a number of Bouguereau's work from 1893 onwards, along with the sisters Jeanne and Marguerite. In La Liseuse she is pictured with a playful look on her face as she glances up from her studies. Bouguereau depicts the same subject in Distraction (lot 38), yet even though the model is his housekeeper's daughter, he shows her as a middle-class young lady. La Liseuse was reproduced in three different size photographs by Braun and Clément, one smaller and two much larger. These photographs were included in the 1907 catalogue as no. 4491.