Portrait of Elizabeth Jane Gardner

Portrait of Elizabeth Jane Gardner, dated 1879 and held at the Chimei Museum in Taiwan, depicts Bouguereau's future wife — the American painter Elizabeth Jane Gardner (1837–1922), who was one of the first American women to exhibit at the Paris Salon. Gardner had arrived in Paris in 1864 and pursued her training with considerable determination despite the restrictions placed on women at the École des Beaux-Arts. She and Bouguereau met through the Salon and artistic circles and became partners, though they did not marry until 1896 following the death of his first wife. A portrait by the man who would eventually become her husband, made sixteen years before their marriage, is a document of considerable personal and artistic significance. The Chimei Museum's Taiwanese holding reflects the global dispersal of Bouguereau's work.

Painting a professional artist who was also a intimate partner placed Bouguereau in a double relationship to the work: formal portrait conventions must be satisfied while personal knowledge of the sitter informed every decision about characterization. The result likely shows greater psychological depth than his commissioned society portraits.