Bouguereau, William-Adolphe (1825-1905)
La Paix (Peace)
1860
Oil on canvas, 85.1 x 107.3 cm
Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis
Two children embrace each other within a pastoral setting in this idyllic view. Adolphe-William Bouguereau, the prominent academic painter, showed “Peace” at the 1861 Salon, the official state-sponsored art exhibition, to critical acclaim. The artist produced a companion work, “War” (JAPS Collection, Mexico), in which the same two children are fighting. “Peace” had previously been identified as a copy after Bouguereau, but recent technical and provenance research has proven this to be an autograph painting. (SLAM)