  About the Artwork
  
  
  William-Adolphe Bouguereau often painted young children, almost invariably girls, as peasants dressed in timeless rural attire. With an impish smile, a barefoot girl in a simple white blouse, creamy bodice, and blue skirt stands with her hands on hips against an ill-defined wooded landscape. While Bouguereau does not provide any clue about the place or time of this idealized scene, the image of the mischievous child is specific and emotionally sensitive.  
	



   



Bouguereau painted this work in his studio in La Rochelle, a seaport on France’s west coast where he spent summers from 1893. The portrayed child is Yvonne, a local peasant girl who was one of Bouguereau’s favorite models. She appears in several other paintings, including On the Shore (Two Sisters) at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
  
  
  Title
  The Mischievous One
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1899
  
  Artist
  William-Adolphe Bouguereau
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1825-1905
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  French
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
  ----------
  
  
  Medium
  Oil on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 52 1/2 × 28 1/2 inches (133.4 × 72.4 cm)
  Framed: 65 × 40 inches (165.1 × 101.6 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  European Modern Art to 1970
  
  
  Credit
  Gift of Nancy Bacon in memory of Conley Charles Bacon
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  2018.208
  
  
  Copyright
  Public Domain
