The broken pitcher (version with ciocie)

The second version of 'The Broken Pitcher,' this 1900 canvas shows the same girl wearing ciocie — the distinctive leather thong sandals worn by peasants of the Lazio region and other parts of central Italy. Bonnat's decision to paint two versions indicates a considered return to one of European painting's most resonant genre motifs. Greuze's 1771 Louvre version established the subject as a meditation on female innocence and its loss, and Bonnat's late revisiting of it suggests awareness of that tradition. The ciocie in this variant anchor the girl more specifically in Italian peasant culture, distinguishing her from the more generically vulnerable figure of the barefoot version. The specific footwear would have been recognizable to viewers familiar with Italian genre painting, adding ethnographic specificity to the symbolic content of the broken vessel.

Oil on canvas with naturalistic modeling and careful attention to the specific texture and lacing of the ciocie sandals — a precise ethnographic detail that gives this version its distinctive character compared to the barefoot variant.