#gold background

Le Printemps (Springtime) (1858) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825 – 1905), signed and dated '-W-BOVGVEREAV-1858' (lower left, with the date possibly added after the completion of the entire commission), oil on canvas, 31 1/4 in. x 59 3/4 in. (79.4 cm. x 151.8 cm.), Private Collection

The present work was originally part of a large altarpiece in the church of Saint John the Baptist in the Augustinian monastery of Inzigkofen. It was subsequently broken up into fourteen panels in order to be sold. The present panel depicts The Visitation, an episode recounted in the Gospel of Saint Luke.

"Carmencita" was born in 1868 in Almería, on the southeastern coast of Spain. She became famous there and in France for her dancing during the 1880s. After her 1889 New York debut, she received many requests for private performances. The painter John Singer Sargent arranged for her to perform in Chase’s Tenth Street studio in 1890. Soon after, Chase painted this lively portrait, in which he signaled audience enthusiasm by depicting gifts of a gold bracelet and flowers tossed at the dancer’s feet. Sargent painted his own portrait of Carmencita (Musée d’Orsay, Paris) the same year.

Turkey, meatballs, and naked toddlers. CHRISTMAS!

After studying in Italy, Thomas Gotch painted works on the theme of motherhood and childhood. Here the jewel-like colours and gold background recall early Christian altarpieces. ‘Sing praises to God, sing praises: Sing praises unto our King, Sing praises, For God is King of all the earth: Sing praises with understanding’, from Psalm xlvii: 6 and 7, is inscribed in Latin along the top. Gotch was a founding member of the Royal Colonial Society of British Artists and the array of clothing may have been intended to communicate the universality of worship, but the painting follows European tradition in representing the angelic singers as pale skinned.

Scanned from Fujin Kurabu (婦人倶楽部), January 1980 .