Formative years William-Adolphe Bouguereau was born in
La Rochelle, France, on 30 November 1825, into a family of wine and
olive oil merchants. The son of Théodore Bouguereau (born 1800) and Marie Bonnin (1804), known as Adeline, William was brought up a
Roman Catholic. He had an elder brother, Alfred, and a younger sister, Marie (known as Hanna), who died when she was seven. The family moved to
Saint-Martin-de-Ré in 1832. Another sibling, Kitty, was born in 1834. At the age of twelve, Bouguereau went to
Mortagne-sur-Gironde to stay with his uncle Eugène, a priest, and developed a love of nature, religion, and literature. In 1839, he was sent to study for the priesthood at a Catholic college in
Pons. Here he learned to draw and paint from Louis Sage, who had studied under
Ingres. Bouguereau then reluctantly left his studies to return to his family, now residing in
Bordeaux. There he met a local artist, Charles Marionneau, and commenced at the Municipal School of Drawing and Painting in November 1841. Bouguereau also worked as a shop assistant, hand-colouring lithographs and making small paintings that were reproduced using
chromolithography. He was soon the best pupil in his class and decided to become an artist in Paris. To fund the move, he sold portraits – 33 oils in three months. All were unsigned and only one has been traced. Bouguereau became a student at the . Along with other category winners, he set off for Rome in December and finally arrived at the Villa Medici in January 1851. Bouguereau explored the city, making sketches and watercolours as he went. He also studied classical literature, which influenced his subject choice for the rest of his career.
Raphael was a favourite of Bouguereau and he took this review as a high compliment. He had fulfilled one of the requirements of the by completing an old-master copy of Raphael's
The Triumph of Galatea. In many of his works, he followed the same classical approach to composition, form, and subject matter. Bouguereau's graceful portraits of women were considered very charming, partly because he could beautify a sitter while also retaining her likeness. Although Bouguereau spent most of his life in Paris, he returned to La Rochelle again and again throughout his professional life. He was revered in the town of his birth and undertook decorating commissions from local citizens. From the early 1870s, he and his family spent every summer in La Rochelle. In 1882, he decided that rather than rent he would purchase a house, as well as local farm buildings. By August of that year, the family's permanent summer base was on the rue Verdière. The artist commenced several paintings here and completed them in his Paris studio. Thanks to Durand-Ruel, Bouguereau met
Hugues Merle, who later often was compared to Bouguereau. The Salons annually drew over 300,000 people, providing valuable exposure to exhibited artists. Bouguereau's fame extended to England by the 1860s. Three paintings were shown at the 1863 Salon and
Holy Family (now at
Chimei Museum) was sold to
Napoleon III, who presented it to his wife the
Empress Eugénie, who hung it in her Tuileries apartment. He also used some of the religious and erotic symbolism of the Old Masters, such as the "broken pitcher" which connoted lost innocence. Bouguereau received many commissions to decorate private houses and public buildings, and, early on, this added to his prestige and fame. As was typical of such commissions, he would sometimes paint in his own style, and at other times conform to an existing group style. He also made reductions of his public paintings for sale to patrons, of which
The Annunciation (1888) is an example. He was also a successful portrait painter and many of his paintings of wealthy patrons remain in private hands.
Académie Julian From the 1860s, Bouguereau was closely associated with the where he gave lessons and advice to art students, male and female, from around the world. During several decades he taught drawing and painting to hundreds, if not thousands, of students. Many of them managed to establish artistic careers in their own countries, sometimes following his academic style, and in other cases, rebelling against it, like
Henri Matisse. He married his famous pupil,
Elizabeth Jane Gardner, after the death of his first wife. Bouguereau received many honors from the academy: he became a Life Member in 1876; received the Grand Medal of Honour in 1885; was appointed Commander of the
Legion of Honor in 1885; and was made Grand Officier of the Legion of Honour in 1905. He began to teach drawing at the in 1875. The academy was a co-ed art institution independent of the , with no entrance exams and nominal fees.
Wives and children ,
Chimei Museum, Tainan, Taiwan In 1856, William began living with one of his models,
Marie-Nelli Monchablon, a 19-year-old, born 15 Nov 1836 in
Lisle-en-Rigault. Living together unmarried, the pair kept their liaison a secret. Their first child, Henriette, was born in April 1857; Georges was born in January 1859. A third child, Jeanne, was born 25 December 1861. The couple married quietly (as many assumed they were already married) on 24 May 1866. Eight days later, Jeanne died from
tuberculosis. In mourning, the couple went to La Rochelle, and Bouguereau made a painting of her in 1868. A fourth child, Adolphe (known as Paul), was born in October 1868. Aged 15, Georges' health suffered, and his mother took him away from the bad air of Paris. However, he died on 19 June 1875. Nelly had a fifth child in 1876, Maurice, but her health was declining and the doctors suspected that she had contracted tuberculosis. Aged 40, Nelly died on 3 April 1877; baby Maurice died two months later. The artist planned to marry
Elizabeth Jane Gardner, a pupil whom he had known for ten years, but his mother was opposed to the idea. Soon after Nelly's death, she made Bouguereau swear he would not remarry within her lifetime. After his mother's death, and after a nineteen-year engagement, he and Gardner married in Paris in June 1896. In the spring of 1905, Bouguereau's house and studio in Paris were burgled. On 19 August 1905, aged 79, Bouguereau died in La Rochelle from heart disease. There was an outpouring of grief in the town of his birth. After a Mass at the cathedral, his body was placed on a train to Paris for a second ceremony. Bouguereau was laid to rest with Nelly and his children at the family vault at
Montparnasse Cemetery. ==Notable works==