by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Published on June 19, 2020 / Updated on October 16, 2026
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
Lady with Glove and La femme au gant
William-Adolphe Bouguereau's Lady with Glove is one of the artist's compact portrait and costume-figure images from around 1870. The English title is direct: a young woman faces the viewer, one hand gloved and the other uncovered, her dark dress and pale skin set against a restrained background. The painting depends on small shifts of contrast. The glove is not a narrative device so much as a formal accent, a way of making the hands, face and costume carry the composition.
The safest source title for the work is the French La femme au gant. Wikimedia Commons records the image under that title and identifies the artist as Bouguereau, with an 1870 date, oil-on-canvas medium, dimensions of 61 by 51 cm and catalogue number 1870/06. WikiArt uses the English title Lady with Glove and repeats the 1870 date and oil-on-canvas medium. Together, those public routes support a careful page, but they do not make the painting museum-object-led. [1][2]
That distinction matters because Lady with Glove has often circulated online through reproduction and image-library routes. Those pages help explain why the English title is familiar, but they are not strong enough to settle every object fact. This page can describe the painting, cite the repeated title and technical information, and place it in Bouguereau's early 1870s figure work, while keeping ownership, display history and image-source details carefully limited.
The modest scale also helps set expectations. At 61 by 51 cm in the captured metadata, Lady with Glove is not one of Bouguereau's large Salon machines or crowded narrative paintings. It is better approached as an intimate figure image, close enough to portraiture to make the viewer study expression and dress, but not source-locked enough to support a full biographical reading of the sitter. The page should let that middle position stand.
At a Glance
- ArtistWilliam-Adolphe Bouguereau
- English TitleLady with Glove [2]
- French TitleLa femme au gant [1]
- Date1870 [1][2]
- MediumOil on canvas [1][2]
- Reported Dimensions61 x 51 cm [1]
- Catalogue Number1870/06 [1]
- Source TypeCatalogue/public-domain metadata route
Contents
- Introduction
- A Portrait Built from Restraint
- Source Context and Title Caution
- Reading Lady with Glove Today
- Related Portrait and Costume Pages
- Frequently Asked Questions
- References
A Portrait Built from Restraint
The painting's power comes from restraint. Bouguereau avoids the theatrical scale of his mythological works and concentrates instead on a half-length figure, a poised face and the clean design of costume. The sitter's dark dress narrows the color range, while the exposed skin and glove sharpen the viewer's attention. The result is not a busy society portrait, but a composed image of presence.
In this sense, Lady with Glove sits close to Bouguereau's wider interest in single figures who appear self-contained. The artist often used costume, pose and polished finish to create a feeling of stillness. Pages such as Italian Girl Drawing Water, A Girl in Peasant Costume and Gypsy Girl with a Basque Drum show related ways of turning costume and pose into a finished image. Lady with Glove is quieter than those genre subjects, but it belongs to the same visual world of controlled figure painting.
The glove itself is best handled without overinterpretation. It gives the painting its title and establishes a point of contrast between covered and uncovered hands. It may also signal social poise or fashionable dress, but the captured sources do not support a fuller story about identity, status or biography. The more secure reading is visual: Bouguereau uses the glove to make the portrait sharper, more memorable and more balanced.
The face is equally important. Bouguereau gives the figure a steady, frontal address, but he keeps the surrounding space sparse. That choice draws attention to finish: the smooth modeling of the skin, the dark silhouette of the dress, the slight turn of the head and the careful placement of the hands. These are the ordinary tools of academic portrait practice, but here they produce an image that feels less ceremonial than concentrated.
Source Context and Title Caution
The available source context places the painting near Bouguereau's early 1870s costume and figure studies. A Sotheby's catalogue note for a related Bouguereau work discusses a likely Italian model, Adele Abuzzese, and mentions La Femme au Gant among works of the period. A Christie's catalogue note for another painting describes a small group of Renaissance-costume pictures from 1869 and 1870 and includes La femme au gant in that context. These auction records are useful for atmosphere and comparison, but they should not govern the object facts for this page. [3][4]
That means the page should avoid turning a catalogue association into sitter certainty. It is reasonable to say that Lady with Glove belongs near Bouguereau's Italian-costume and Renaissance-costume interests of the period. It is not safe to state that a named model is definitively represented, or that the painting's present location is known from the captured routes.
Seen alongside Far from Home, Berceuse and Art and Literature, Lady with Glove helps show how Bouguereau moved between narrative, allegory and portrait-like figure painting. The surface polish is consistent, but the emotional register changes. Here, the painting asks for close looking rather than storytelling: face, fabric, glove, hand and gaze.
Reading Lady with Glove Today
For a modern reader, the most useful way into Lady with Glove is through that balance of clarity and uncertainty. The title is familiar, the French form is source-backed, and the date, medium and dimensions are repeated by public metadata routes. Other questions remain open. A good page should be honest about that. It can present the painting as a refined 1870 oil on canvas, associated with Bouguereau's costume-figure practice, without pretending that the object's full history has been settled.
That honesty makes the painting more useful, not less. It keeps attention on what the sources can support and on what the image itself offers: a compact example of Bouguereau's polished figure language, poised between portrait, costume study and public-image circulation. Treated carefully, Lady with Glove can become a clear route into the artist's smaller figure works without overstating what is known.
Related Portrait and Costume Pages
Frequently Asked Questions
Discussion
Lady with Glove rewards close looking at costume, hands and Bouguereau's polished portrait language.
Use the prompts below to compare the painting's title, glove motif and source caution with Bouguereau's other figure pages.
Reader Insights
How does the glove sharpen the portrait's design without requiring a fixed symbolic story?
What does the costume suggest when the page avoids sitter certainty?
Where do you see Bouguereau using academic polish to make a compact figure image feel complete?
Join the Conversation
Share your reading of Bouguereau's portrait language, costume context and careful source limits below.
References
- Wikimedia Commons, Femmegant W-A Bouguereau, accessed 29 July 2026.
- WikiArt, Lady with Glove, 1870, accessed 29 July 2026.
- Sotheby's, Le bouquet de violettes, 2014, accessed 29 July 2026.
- Christie's, Entre la richesse et l'amour, 2017, accessed 29 July 2026.
