William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) was a staunch traditionalist whose realistic genre paintings and mythological themes were modern interpretations of classical subjects with a heavy emphasis on the female human body.
In his own time, Bouguereau was considered to be one of the greatest painters in the world by the academic art community, and simultaneously he was reviled by the avant-garde.
He also gained wide fame in Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Romania and in the United States, and commanded high prices.