A Calling (1896): Art, History and Details

A Calling (1896) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is William Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825–1905).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Seated on a stone step in the countryside, a young girl has realized that her calling in life is to be an artist. Bouguereau was famous for his innovative depictions of children. In 1900 a critic wrote, "[F]ew artists have represented childhood with more tenderness, charm, and spirit than Bouguereau . . . [H]e has invented the most picturesque, the most pleasing, the most original scenes of an almost endless variety." Bouguereau was no less famous for his remarkably life-like images. Here he convincingly captures the girl's rough clothing, soft skin, and intense gaze. Bouguereau painted this work in La Rochelle, a harbor city on France's west coast. During the later years of his life, Bouguereau—by then wealthy and famous—made a habit of spending summers in La Rochelle. There the artist lived in a mansion he owned near the port, working in a greenhouse he had converted into a studio or in the countryside. While in La Rochelle, Bouguereau chose his models from among farm workers, families of local fishermen, or his own servants.

Object facts

• Title: A Calling
• Date: 1896
• Creator attribution: William Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825–1905)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on fabric
• Dimensions: Framed: 132 x 99 x 10.6 cm (51 15/16 x 39 x 4 3/16 in.); Unframed: 104 x 71 cm (40 15/16 x 27 15/16 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1996.272

Collection credit

Gift of the Frances W. Ingalls Trust

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.