“Fishing For Frogs” by William Adolphe Bouguereau
Times and tastes change. If you don’t change with them, you’ll be left behind. The artist of our cover this month, “Fishing For Frogs” (54 in. by 42 in.), which sold for $1,762,500 at Heritage Auctions’ recent Signature American & European Art Sale in Dallas on May 15, 2012, experienced this sentiment first hand.
William Adolphe Bouguereau was a French painter in the mid to late 19th century trained in the academic style. He was a well-known traditionalist who embraced mythological themes and found inspiration in interpreting classical subjects, with an emphasis on the nude female form. During his life, Bouguereau was considered one of the finest artists in the world by the academic community and was compared favorably to such classical luminaries as Rafael.
However, for all of his academic accolades, Bouguereau was reviled by the impressionist avant-garde. Edgar Degas coined the term “Bouguereauté” to derogatorily refer to anything that was slick and artificial. By the time the impressionists finally gained mainstream traction in the 1920s, Bouguereau was considered a joke.
Courtesy of Heritage Auctions, 2012
