  About the Artwork
  
  
  William-Adolphe Bouguereau achieved prominence in the official art establishment and public marketplace in France with his paintings of peasant subjects. Employing his hallmark technical skills, he painted young peasant girls, often caught in a moment of intimacy or sisterly affection. Barefoot, these girls wear timeless, pristinely clean dresses, which complement their smooth skin, seemingly untouched by working in the fields in the sun. The artist constructed these idealized images of rural childhood in his studio, working with local models who were daughters of his domestic help or farm workers near his home in La Rochelle. Sisters Yvonne and Jeanne, peasant girls from La Rochelle, posed for this painting.
  
  
  Title
  On the Shore (Two Sisters)
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1896
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Oil on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 56 × 36 inches (142.2 × 91.4 cm)
  Framed: 72 3/8 × 52 7/8 × 6 inches (183.8 × 134.3 × 15.2 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  European Modern Art to 1970
  
  
  Credit
  Gift of Charles Willis Ward
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  09.2
  
  
  Copyright
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