The Elder Sister
William-Adolphe Bouguereau
William-Adolphe Bouguereau was a French academic painter. In his realistic genre paintings he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female human body.
Max Resolution:1100×1475 PX
Title:The Elder Sister
Artists:William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Date:1869
Style:Academicism
Genre:portrait
Medium:oil,canvas
Location:Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH), Houston, TX, US
Dimensions:97.2×130.2 cm
Copyright:Public domain
The Elder Sister (French: La soeur aînée) is a painting by nineteenth-century French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau in 1869. The painting was acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in 1992 as an anonymous gift. According to the museum web site, this was a gift of an anonymous lady in memory of her father. Since then, The Elder Sister has been a part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (in the "Arts of Europe" section). It has become one of the most notable highlights in museum's collection of paintings.
The painting shows a girl ("the elder sister") sitting on a rock and holding a sleeping baby ("the younger brother") on her lap, with a quiet rural landscape behind them. For this scene, Bouguereau's daughter Henriette and son Paul served as models. The beauty of the girl and her eyes, which are looking directly at the viewer, as well the balance of the composition, including positioning of the legs and arms of the children, demonstrate Bouguereau's academic painting style.
The dimensions of the painting are 51¼ × 38¼ in (130.2 × 97.2 cm) and the frame is 67½ × 55 × 5½ in (171.5 × 139.7 × 14 cm).
There is also another painting by Bouguereau called The Elder Sister (completed in 1864), currently belonging to the permanent collection in the Brooklyn Museum.
The painting shows a girl ("the elder sister") sitting on a rock and holding a sleeping baby ("the younger brother") on her lap, with a quiet rural landscape behind them. For this scene, Bouguereau's daughter Henriette and son Paul served as models. The beauty of the girl and her eyes, which are looking directly at the viewer, as well the balance of the composition, including positioning of the legs and arms of the children, demonstrate Bouguereau's academic painting style.
The dimensions of the painting are 51¼ × 38¼ in (130.2 × 97.2 cm) and the frame is 67½ × 55 × 5½ in (171.5 × 139.7 × 14 cm).
There is also another painting by Bouguereau called The Elder Sister (completed in 1864), currently belonging to the permanent collection in the Brooklyn Museum.