The broken pitcher by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

This realistic and melancholy work fits with great strength into the pictorial tradition of peasant life scenes at the end of the century. With the composition “The broken pitcher”, the prominent painter William Bouguereau offers a poignant portrait of a young peasant girl captured in a moment of contemplative solitude. The artist carefully avoids any excessive idealization to reveal the quiet dignity and gentle sadness of this popular figure.

A young girl with pinned-up brown hair sits on the edge of a grey stone well, her hands joined on her knees. She is dressed in a white blouse, a very dark blue skirt, and wears a large plaid shawl of ochre and red on her shoulders. Her bare feet hang in the foreground, brushing the grassy ground. Beside her, at the foot of the stone well, lies a large water pitcher in glazed earthenware of a shiny bottle green. On the left stands the rustic structure of a water pump in cast iron or dark wood. A distant landscape of a misty plain under a clear blue sky extends in the background.

The artist's technical mastery is brilliant in the shiny rendering of the pottery's green glaze and the rough aspect of the stone. His oil painting offers an exceptional modeling that gives the character a physical presence and an unforgettable expression. This work is of a striking realism of truth.