WILLIAM-ADOLPHE BOUGUEREAU (La Rochelle 1825-1905)

This study was made for The Vow in Sainte Anne-d’Auray, a painting presented at the Salon of 1870 (no. 335) and today in a private collection (D. Bartoli, with F. Ross, William Bouguereau. Catalogue Raisonné of his Painted Work, New York, 2010, no. 1869/19, ill.). The painting depicts two Breton young women, in traditional costume kneeling in prayer at the basilica of Sainte-Anne-d’Auray, a well-known pilgrimage site in the Quiberon Bay, in the south of the Morbihan region of Brittany.