I have been doing some traveling lately, mostly for work (Magic the Gathering) but I have taken advantage of it to see some museums when I do. I was able to get some good captures of a couple Bouguereau paintings in the Frye Museum in Seattle and the Getty in L.A. I thought I would share them here along with some detail shots. Be sure and download them, or open them in a new tab to see them at full-size.

First up, The Shepherdess, 1881.

One more – A Young Girl Defending Herself Against Eros, 1880. This painting was done just a year before the other one.  Here are some notes from the Getty site:

A young nude woman sits with her arms outstretched, pushing away a winged boy. He is Cupid, the god of love, holding up an arrow to pierce her. The title suggests that the young woman is trying to defend herself, yet she smiles and struggles unconvincingly against the mischievous little god.

Visitors to the Paris exhibitions of the 1870s and 1880s loved William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s paintings. The Getty Museum’s painting repeats a larger composition that Bouguereau made for the Paris Salon in 1880; a viewer probably saw the larger version there and requested a smaller one for private viewing.

Bouguereau placed his mythological fantasy in an idyllic, Arcadian landscape. In fact, he made this composition in his studio, copying the landscape from the neighboring French countryside and using one of his favorite models.

I hope that you enjoyed these images. Sometimes getting really good detail shots can help inform the process, or application of paint. I see them as supplements to my notes and they help my memory immensely.

A side note, the Getty site offers really large and beautiful captures of their collection for free. The capture of the image above is mine, but there is a very large and excellent image on their site along with hundreds of others. Tadema’s Spring comes to mind. Go check it out. Getty Museum