William-Adolphe Bouguereau · 1879
The Birth of Venus
Posters from $15 · Canvas from $39
Bouguereau's perfectly polished Venus rising from her scallop shell amid putti and dolphins — Academic painting at its most beloved-and-derided. Musée d'Orsay.
Up to 17 × 24 in · portrait
Size
Larger sizes are unavailable for this painting because the source scan's resolution wouldn't print at gallery quality.
Format & finish
Archival cotton canvas stretched over a wooden frame. Ready to hang as-is. No external frame.
Scale next to a 5'10" person
+ tax at checkout
The story of The Birth of Venus
The Birth of Venus is one of the most famous paintings by 19th-century painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau. It depicts not the actual birth of Venus from the sea, but her transportation in a shell as a fully mature woman from the sea to Paphos in Cyprus. She is considered the epitome of the Classical Greek and Roman ideal of the female form and beauty, on par with Venus de Milo.
Adapted from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
William-Adolphe Bouguereau
William-Adolphe Bouguereau was a French academic painter. In his realistic genre paintings, he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female human body. During his life, he enjoyed significant popularity in France and the United States, was given numerous official honors, and received top prices for his work. As the quintessential salon painter of his generation, he was reviled by the Impressionist avant-garde. By the early twentieth century, Bouguereau and his art fell out of favor with the public, due in part to changing tastes. In the 1980s, a revival of interest in figure painting led to a rediscovery of Bouguereau and his work. He finished 822 known paintings, but the whereabouts of many are still unknown.
All William-Adolphe Bouguereau prints →Biography adapted from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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