The Bohemian

The Bohemian is an oil on canvas that William-Adolphe Bouguereau completed in 1890, within his production of genre scenes in the academic style. It shows a barefoot young woman with a violin resting in her lap, seated on a concrete bench on the south bank of the Seine, with Notre Dame across the river. She wraps her arms around the instrument and clasps her hands with the fingers pointing forward, so the violin is held in place without leaning on her body. Over her shoulders she wears a shawl in maroon and pale green, and a plain gray dress that reaches her ankles. The bow is slipped diagonally beneath the fingerboard, a practical detail that adds to the sense of an unposed moment. To the right stands a maple tree, framing the scene with a touch of greenery in the city. The same model appears in other works by the painter, among them The Shepherdess, showing how Bouguereau reused his figures to study variations of type, light and pose. The painting belonged to the Minneapolis Institute of Art until 2004, when Christie's auctioned it to fund the museum's acquisition fund.

Painter

William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Date

1890

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

150 × 124 cm

Movement

academic art

Genre

genre art

Depicts

sitting, bridge, Earth's surface, waist-length hair, Seine, broad-leaved tree, teenager, street musician

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