William Bouguereau

Tooth & Sons and Knoedler, New York (in February 1902, no. 9807)
Anderson Art & Co., Chicago (in May 1909)
Knoedler, New York (no. 11837)
D. Herbert Hostetter, Pittsburgh (in November 1909)
Marium Breed (by descent from the above, possibly from 1930)
Thence by descent

"William Bouguereau," Médaillons bordelais, Bordeaux, n.d., series 3, no. 65
Mark Steven Walker, "A Summary Catalogue of the Paintings," in William-Adolphe Bouguereau: L'art pompier, exh. cat., Borghi & Co., New York, 1991, p. 75
Damien Bartoli with Fred Ross, William Bouguereau, Catalogue Raisonné of his Painted Work, New York, 2010, p. 344, no. 1901/08 (with incorrect dimensions and provenance), illustrated

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting is in lovely condition. The canvas is unlined and there is no cracking or instability to the paint layer. There do not appear to be any retouches. Despite the tendency for Bouguereau's later works to be thinly applied there is no weakness that has developed in the face or hands. The work should be hung as is.
"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 1846, Michael Knoedler arrived in the United States from France to open the New York branch of Goupil & Cie., one of the most powerful and influential galleries of the period (its provenance found in numerous works in the present catalogue). In 1857, Knoedler bought out Goupil’s interests, establishing his own gallery which quickly became known well beyond New York and in particular Pittsburgh, then the home to some of the wealthiest industrialists in America. By the late 1880s and into the 1890s, Andrew Carnegie, J. J. Vandergrift, Charles Lockhart, and Henry Clay Frick all had developed remarkable art collections, with a significant number of paintings acquired through Knoedler. While Knoedler sold works by Barbizon and French naturalists, Bouguereau was among his most popular and profitable artists. Indeed, at least thirty works by the artist hung in as many as two dozen Pittsburgh homes (DeCourcy E. McIntosh, “Demand and Supply: The Pittsburgh Art Trade and M. Knoedler & Co., “Collecting in the Gilded Age, Art Patronage in Pittsburgh, 1890-1910, Pittsburgh, 1997, pp. 112-4, 167-8).  Among them was Le goûter, first sold by Knoedler in 1902 and acquired in 1909 by the wealthy manufacturer D. Herbert Hostetter (1859-1924).  Hostetter’s purchase could have been influenced by the collection of his fellow Pittsburgh Free Dispensary board member Henry Clay Frick, whose Bouguereau of The Mischievous One was acquired via Knoedler in 1894 (and sold in these rooms on April 20, 2005, lot 61, illustrated). Men like Hostetter and Frick had the financial means and social influence to obtain nearly any work of art they desired yet above all, as DeCourcy E. McIntosh explains, owning a Bouguereau  was “one of the defining elements of taste in Pittsburgh during the Gilded Age” (pp. 168-9).

Le goûter’s young model, enjoying a bite of crusty bread with a bunch of green grapes, is a particularly apt (if coincidental) choice for Hostetter whose family had long been in the business of making bitters, an herbal tonic enjoyed after a meal.  As with many of his fellow Pittsburghers, Hostetter’s wealth came from industrial ingenuity: his grandfather had perfected a particularly effective recipe for bitters which, in addition to aiding digestion, were a useful way to covertly imbibe alcohol (the formula was 47% alcohol and 94 proof). After 1853, the product entered mass production and in the decades following “Hostetter’s Celebrated Stomach Bitters” became a household name. In 1888 Hostetter inherited both the family estate, valued at $6.6 million, and a company that had diversified into oil and natural gas exploration, banking, and railroad construction. In addition to growing the business, Hostetter built a life with his wife Miriam and their four children. Their daughter, also named Miriam, bears a resemblance to the present work’s model, perhaps another important factor in its purchase, though her rough-spun clothing and sun kissed skin are a world apart from the Pittsburgh elite and the glamorous life she would lead. In 1920, Miriam was reported to have eloped from the family home by descending a rope ladder into a waiting car.  She would remarry twice more, meeting her third husband, William Z. Breed, with whom she shared a love of show dogs.  Indeed, until her death in 1968 Miriam Breed played an important part in the development of the Boxer in America, owning over fifty champions raised at her Barmere Kennels.  According to family memory, Miriam inherited Le goûter from her father, and it has passed through Hostetter’s descendants ever since.

We are grateful to Steven Keylon and his “Wyvernwood Series”  at the online journal  Baldwin Hills Village… and the Village Green for providing the history of the Hostetter family explored in this catalogue entry.