Bouguereau at $35 million? Wow!!
It seems that just yesterday, actually 2006 that shady Albany appraiser slash art dealer slash conflict of interest Mark LaSalle offered a $65 thousand appraisal to a trusting convent of nuns.
With staggeringly large proportions (11 feet tall and 20 feet wide) and a veritable bacchanal of movement and color, William-Adolphe Bouguereau's Le Jeunesse de Bacchus (The Youth of Bacchus) is considered his most important painting. Sotheby's New York recently announced that it will auction the artwork during the Impressionist and Modern Art evening sale on May 14 with an estimate of $25-35 million.
The classically inspired work depicts a feast of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and debauchery, as maenads (Bacchus' female followers) dance in the forested setting, naked cherubs play instruments, centaurs (half man, half horse) blow on flutes and satyrs (woodland gods) cavort through the woods. An over-served Bacchus, crowned by a wreath of ivy, rides into the festivities on a donkey, supported by two of his followers. The elaborate scene features hallmarks of the works of Bouguereau, a pre-eminent 19th century painter of the Paris Salon, with his mythical subject matter, proportionate and idealized human form, and masterful command of light and color.
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