Smooth paint and the Paris Salon
Academic Painting
The painting the Paris Salon favoured in the later 1800s, finished so smoothly that the brush almost disappears. Bouguereau’s Breton girl holding her little brother, Cot’s young lovers running from the storm under a billowing cloth, Cabanel’s Venus stretched out on a wave, Bonnat’s girl drinking at a Roman fountain, Gérôme’s tiger lying among dark rocks, and Meissonier’s cuirassiers charging past Napoleon at Friedland.
As a puzzle
Smooth paint is slower than it looks. Skin, satin and sky blend with almost no brushwork, so begin where the edges are sharp: faces, a red skirt, a white horse, the buttons and braid of a uniform. The battle pictures are busy and take a high count well. The dark ground around the tiger and Mrs Astor’s black gown want a moderate one.
A good size here: 50–200 pieces.
16 pictures, pick one to build
The Storm Pierre-Auguste Cot, 1880 
Breton Brother and Sister William Bouguereau, 1871 
Study of Palm Trees Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1855/56 
An Egyptian Peasant Woman and Her Child Léon Bonnat, 1869–70 
The Defense of Champigny Edouard Detaille, 1879 
The Birth of Venus Alexandre Cabanel, 1875 
Roman Girl at a Fountain Léon Bonnat, 1875 
Mrs. William Astor (Caroline Webster Schermerhorn, 1831–1908) Carolus-Duran (Charles-Auguste-Emile Durant), 1890 
A Cavalryman Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville, 1884 
Young Mother Gazing at Her Child William Bouguereau, 1871 
Catharine Lorillard Wolfe (1828–1887) Alexandre Cabanel, 1876 
The Dispatch-Bearer Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville, 1880 
1807, Friedland Ernest Meissonier, ca. 1861–75 
The Proposal William Bouguereau, 1872 
Tiger and Cubs Jean-Léon Gérôme, ca. 1884 
Woman at a Balcony Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1887–88