Favorite Artists: William Bouguereau

The French artist William Bouguereau, 1825-1905, is another of my favorite painters. Born in La Rochelle, he was a hard-working, disciplined craftsman who produced more than 800 paintings. Immensely successful in his time, Bouguereau’s romantic realism fell out of favor about 15 years after his death and his name slipped into relative obscurity. He work has now regained its popularity and is featured in more than a hundred museums around the world. In fact, works that were selling for $500 to $1,500 in the 1960s are now selling at auction for as much as three-and-a-half million dollars. That’s a nice comeback.