Description:
Visual description:This vertical painting depicts a young woman in a white, draped dress seated by a terrace wall with a view of the green outdoors. The woman wears her hair in an upswept style, her white dress falls in soft, loose folds around her body. She sits on a dark, curved chair, barefoot, with one leg slightly drawn. She holds a ball of blue yarn in her left hand. A winged child-like naked figure stands on the low terrace wall, leans behind the woman, and anoints her ear. She looks up sideways as if towards where she feels the touch, her eyes wide open and lips formed in a soft smile, showing her white teeth. There is a conical woven basket beside her on a tiled floor with several balls of blue yarn, and diagonally across stands a wooden loom with the same color yarn woven through it. A white column rises in the background along the right margin of the picture.
Label Text:
In this fanciful depiction of life in ancient Greece, a playful Cupid anoints a young woman’s ear with perfume, distracting her with thoughts of love as her mind wanders from her tedious task of winding balls of wool. Bouguereau's strict adherence to a realistic, classical style gained him widespread acclaim in France and the United States at the same time that the Impressionist painters were struggling to establish a different approach. The luminous color and delicate, almost invisible brush strokes are hallmarks of Bouguereau's work.
Written by Sara Sligar, Class of 2010
Tags:
figures; angels; love; workers; female; portraits Subjects:
Angels; Females; figures (representations); Canvas Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+1971.54 |
