William Bouguereau

Goupil & Cie, Paris, 1866 (acquired directly from the artist)
Theo van Gogh, 1866 (acquired from Goupil's Amsterdam branch)
Possibly, Private Collection (and sold, Christie's, London, March 12, 1880, lot 109)
Possibly, Thomas Agnew & Sons, London.
Possibly, Samuel P. Avery, New York (1880)
Mary Radcliffe (and sold, Christie's, London, February 22, 1908, lot 30)
Bernheim-Jeune et Cie., Paris
Mrs. Escudero, Buenos Aires
Sale: Adolfo Bullrich y Cia, Buenos Aires, November 14, 1973, lot 20, illustrated (as Maternidad)
Hammer Galleries, New York
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph M. Tanenbaum, Toronto (by 1975 and sold, Sotheby's, New York, February 16, 1995, lot 73, illustrated)
Private Collection, California (and sold, Chirstie's, New York, April 23, 2003, lot 9, illustrated
Acquired at the above sale

Hempstead, New York, The Emily Lowe Art Gallery, Hofstra University, Art Pompier: Anti-Impressionism, 19th Century French Salon Painting, 1974, no. 14
Ottawa, The National Gallery of Canada, The Other Nineteenth Century: Paintings and Sculpture in the collection of Mr and Mrs. Joseph M. Tanenbaum, 1978, no. 11
New York, Borghi & Co., William-Adolphe Bouguereau: L'Art Pompier, November 14, 1991-January 7, 1992

Louise D'Argencourt and Douglas Druick, The Other Nineteenth Century: Paintings and Sculpture in the collection of Mr and Mrs. Joseph M. Tanenbaum, exh. cat., The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1978, pp. 54-5, no. 11, illustrated
Mark Steven Walker, “William-Adolphe Bouguereau, A Summary Catalogue of the Paintings," William-Adolphe Bouguereau, L’Art Pompier, exh. cat., Borghi & Co., New York, 1991, p. 20, 66, illustrated p. 21
Damien Bartoli with Frederick C. Ross, William Bouguereau, Catalogue Raisonné of his Painted Work, New York, 2010, p. 78, no. 1864/03A, illustrated

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This canvas has been lined. The paint layer is very smooth. The painting is cleaned and varnished. There may be retouches in some of the colors that read darkly under ultraviolet light, but retouches are difficult to positively identify. There are possibly a few spots of retouching in the upper right background. There may also be some retouches in the right shoulder of the sleeping child and in the left foot of the standing boy. The painting 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."

The present work is a smaller, modified version of the painting La Sommeil that Bouguereau presented at the Paris Salon of 1864. Interestingly, the Salon painting presents the figure group in a sunny courtyard, while in his reduction Bouguereau has chosen to place the family in a softly-lit interior beside a staircase, adding a still life at left. While there are no overt religious references in either painting, the image of the mother and children can be interpreted as a secular portrayal of the Holy Family, in this instance dressed as Italian peasants.

Critics of the day recognized the influence of earlier religious works on this secularized subject. Gauthier declared “There is a great deal of charm in this maternal grouping, which could easily become a Sainte Famille” and Paul de Saint-Victor described it as “three white figures, composed and grouped like a working-class Holy Family” (Ludovic Baschet, Catalogue illustré des oeuvres de W. Bouguereau, Paris, 1889, p. 28). Indeed, Bouguereau’s own Sainte Famille of 1863, painted the year before and which belonged to the Imperial Family and hung in the Palais des Tuileries, clearly gave inspiration to La Sommeil.

After receiving the esteemed Prix de Rome in 1850, Bouguereau spent four years in Italy studying the works of Giotto and Raphael, whom he most revered. The plasticity in the modeling that Bouguereau, the consummate academic, achieves in Le Sommeil recalls the surfaces and articulations of the saints of the great masters of the high renaissance.