Young Girl Bathing

Attributedattributed to Pierre-Paul Prud'hon (French, 1758 - 1823)

Additional Title(s)

Jeune Fille au Bain
Bathing Nymph

ClassificationsPAINTINGS

Date1782

Mediumoil on canvas

Dimensionscanvas: 15 7/8 × 12 3/4 in. (40.3 × 32.4 cm.) frame: 31 3/4 × 18 1/2 × 2 1/4 in. (80.6 × 47 × 5.7 cm.)

SignedSigned in lower left of recto: PP Prudhon [and the possible remnants of fecit]

InscribedSigned in lower left of recto: PP Prudhon [and the possible remnants of fecit]

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Adele S. Browning Memorial Collection, gift of Mildred Browning Green and Honorable Lucius Peyton Green

Status

Not on view

Label TextFew works from the earliest period of Pierre-Paul Prud'hon's career have survived, making it difficult to attribute this painting on stylistic grounds. Although the signature and date at lower left were partially effaced when the painting was cleaned, photographs made in the early twentieth century show that the canvas once bore the date 1782. This was the same year that the young and ambitious artist first went to Paris from his native Dijon, and this date, if accurate, would make the work one of the earliest known paintings by Prud'hon. While in Paris, Prud'hon lodged with the Fauconniers, a family of fellow Burgundians. A member of this family owned this painting as late as 1874. In addition to the circumstantial evidence for an attribution to Prud'hon provided by this provenance, the work resembles in some of its details, such as the draperies, certain drawings Prud'hon made in this early period of his career. As a mature artist, Prud'hon became known for his idiosyncratic and proto-romantic interpretation of the then-fashionable neoclassicism and for his extensive work for the Napoleonic court.

Object number78.20.16