The Bathers

CC0 Public Domain Designation

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

1884

William Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825–1905)

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: William Adolphe Bouguereau
Title: The Bathers
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1884
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Inscribed lower left: W. Bouguereau 1884
Dimensions: 200.7 × 128.9 cm (79 × 50 3/4 in.); Framed: 213.7 × 141.3 cm (84 1/8 × 55 5/8 in.)
Credit Line: A. A. Munger Collection
Reference Number: 1901.458
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/39560/manifest.json

Art Institute of Chicago, Catalogue of Paintings, Sculpture, and Other Objects in the Museum (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1894), p. 62, no. 124.
Art Institute of Chicago, Twentieth Annual Report of the Trustees (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1899), p. 11.
Charles Francis Browne, “The Permanent Collections in the Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago: VII. The Munger Collection,” Brush and Pencil 3, 1 (1898), pp. 2, 5–6, 8 (ill.).
Marius Vachon, William Bouguereau (Paris: Lahure, 1900), p. 155.
Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Objects in the Museum (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1901), p. 172, no. 186, ill.
Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Objects in the Museum (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1904), p. 178, no. 186, ill.
“Adolph William Bouguereau,” Sketch Book 5 (1905), ill. opposite p. 30.
Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Sculpture, Paintings and Other Objects (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1907), p. 191, no. 186, ill.
Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Sculpture, Paintings and Other Objects (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1910), p. 177, no. 186, ill.
Art Institute of Chicago, The Collections Illustrated, with a Historical Sketch and Description of the Museum (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1910), p. 23, ill.
H. Mireur, Dictionnaire des ventes d’art faites en France et à l’Etranger prendant les XVIIIme & XIXme siècles, vol. 1 (Paris: 1911), p. 415.
Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Paintings, Sculpture, and Other Objects in the Museum (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1913), p. 120, no. 186, ill.
Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Paintings, Sculpture, and Other Objects in the Museum (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1914), p. 125, no. 186.
“Notes,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 8, 2 (1914), p. 22.
Art Institute of Chicago, Catalogue of Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture and Architecture (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1917), p. 125, no. 186.
Art Institute of Chicago, Handbook of Sculpture, Architecture, Paintings, and Drawings (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1920), p. 29, no. 186.
Art Institute of Chicago, Handbook of Sculpture, Architecture and Paintings (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1922), p. 29, no. 186.
Art Institute of Chicago, Handbook of Sculpture, Architecture, and Paintings (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1923), p. 29, no. 186.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1925), p. 128, no. 186.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1932), p. 143.
Charles Fabens Kelley, “Chicago: Record years,” Art News 51, 4 (1952), p. 62 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), p. 30.
Barbara Ehrlich White, “The Bathers of 1887 and Renoir’s Anti-Impressionism,” The Art Bulletin 55, 1 (1973), pp. 121–22, fig. 28.
Richard Shiff, “The End of Impressionism,” in Charles S. Moffett, et. al., The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886, exh. cat. (San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums, 1986), p. 63, fig. 2.
Laurier Lacroix, “Bouguereau, une question de sensibilité,” Vie des Arts 29, 115 (1984), p. 23 (ill.).
Stefan Germer, “Pictures at an Exhibition,” Chicago History 16, 1 (1987), pp. 14–15 (ill.), 21.
Charles Harrison, Essays on Art and Language (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), p. 179, pl. 96.
Philip Yenawine, How to Look at Modern Art (New York: H. N. Abrams, 1991), pp. 28 (ill.), 29.
Mark Steven Walker, “A Summary Catalogue of Paintings,” in Borghi & Co., William-Adolphe Bouguereau: l’art pompier, exh. cat. (Borghi & Co., New York, 1991), p. 72.
Robert Rosenblum, Gregory Hedberg and Mark Steven Walker, William-Adolphe Bouguereau: L’Art pompier (New York: Borghi & Co., 1992), p. 82.
Margherita Andreotti, “The Joseph Winterbotham Collection,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 20, 2 (1994), p. 116.
Ruth Zubans, E. Phillips Fox: His Life and Art (Carlton, Victoria: Miegunyah Press, 1995), p. 21, 26, fig. 8.
Fronia E. Wissman, Bouguereau (San Francisco: Pomegranate Artbooks, 1996), p. 86, pl. 55.
Charles Harrison, “Cézanne: Fantasy and Imagination,” Modernism/Modernity 4, 3 (1997), p. 3, fig. 2. cover ill, detail.
Charles Harrison, Modernism (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 14, fig. 11.
Charles Harrison, “Impresionismo, modernidad y originalidad,” in Francis Frascina, et. a., La modernidad y lo modern: pintura francesa en el siglo xix (Madrid: Akal, 1998), pp. 208–09, 211–12, fig. 191.
Lukas Gloor and Marco Goldin, La Fondazione Collezione E. G. Bührle a Zurigo: Catalogo delle opera (Treviso: Linea d’ombra, 2003), p. 86 (ill.).
Charles Harrison, Painting the Difference: Sex and Spectator in Modern Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), pp. 66-67, fig. 44.
Linda Nochlin, Bathers, Bodies, Beauty: The Visceral Eye (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 19, 21, fig. 4.
Damien Bartoli, William Bouguereau: His Life and Works, vol. 1 (Woodbridge: Antique Collectors’ Club, 2010), p. 305, pl. 176.
Damien Bartoli, William Bouguereau: Catalogue Raisonné of his Painted Work, vol. 2 (Woodbridge: Antique Collectors’ Club, 2010), p. 225, no. 1884/07, pl. 176.
Al Gury, Color for Painters: A Guide to Traditions and Practice (New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 2010), pp. 158–59,

Exhibited at London, French Gallery, 1884–85.
Toledo Museum of Art, The Spirit of Modern France 1745–1946, November–December 1946, cat. 40; traveled to Toronto Art Gallery, January–February 1947.
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Gay Nineties Exhibition, Fall 1950.
Miami Art Center, The Artist and the Sea, March 21–April 18, 1969, cat. 6.
Paris, Musée du Petit Palais, William Bouguereau 1825–1905, February 9–May 6, 1984, cat. 112; traveled to Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, June 22–September 23, 1984; Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum, October 27, 1984–January 13, 1985.

Sold by the artist to Goupil & Cie, Paris, October 17, 1884 [according to Goupil & Cie stock book no. 17185, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles]; sold to Charles F. Haseltine, Philadelphia, August 4, 1885 for 36,000 francs [according to the stock book referenced above]; his sale, New York, 1886, for 100,450 francs [according to Mireur 1911]. Albert A. Munger (died 1898), Chicago, by 1894 [lent to the Art Institute, 1894]; bequeathed to the Art Institute, 1901.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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