William-Adolphe Bouguereau

William-Adolphe Bouguereau was born in France on 30 November 1825 and trained as an academic painter, building a career on realistic genre works that recast classical mythology through the lens of the female body. The approach won him significant popularity in France and the United States, official honors, and top prices - he became the quintessential salon painter of his generation. The Impressionist avant-garde reviled him for it. By the early twentieth century, as tastes shifted, Bouguereau and his work fell out of favor with the public. A revival of interest in figure painting during the 1980s brought rediscovery. He died on 19 August 1905, leaving 822 known paintings, many of whose whereabouts remain unknown.