Admiration

"Admiration" was awarded the highest honors in the Salon of 1899, when Bouguereau was at the height of his fame. "Admiration" represents a somewhat simplified version of "The Offering of Love," one of the artist's most influential Salon paintings. Instead of the seven figures in the original composition, this version shows five beautiful, idealized women surrounding the coy figure of Cupid who stands on the ground. The painting was enormously successful and was praised by both writers and viewers. Bouguereau often completed studies of the heads, feet, and hands of the models included in his compositions, and with phenomenal virtuosity almost without precedent, was able to complete these detailed, realistic studies in only a few hours. Frequently, he was able to reproduce figure studies directly onto the canvas in finished version. Some later critics denegrated the glossy finish and sentimentality of the work, but it remains a perfect example of late-nineteenth-century academic painting in the grand tradition of Raphael, Ingres, and the French Salon.