William-Adolphe
Bouguereau(1825
1905) was a French academic painter. As a young man, Bouguereau
created drawings from memory only in his spare time, late in the evening.
This diligence and discipline resulted in an extrordinarily productive
artistic life. Bouguereau produced more than seven hundred works and
achieved a remarkable level of public acclaim and financial success.
Like many painters of the second half of the 19th century, Bouguereau
made a careful study of form and technique and steeped himself in
classical sculpture and painting.