Le glaïeul

Le glaïeul — The Gladiolus — from 1904, now in the Mobile Museum of Art in Alabama, combines a figure study with a gladiolus flower in the manner of Bouguereau's late decorative compositions. The gladiolus, with its tall, slender form and vivid blooms, had been a popular subject in late nineteenth-century painting and was a frequent prop in academic figure studies. The Mobile Museum of Art's collection of nineteenth-century European academic painting reflects the widespread American collecting of this tradition, particularly in the South where academic taste persisted somewhat longer than in more progressive collecting centres.

The gladiolus's upright, architectural form provides a vertical counterpoint to the softer curves of the female figure beside it. Bouguereau renders the flower with botanical attention — the individual blooms, their petals, and the stem's upward thrust all carefully observed and depicted with his characteristic precision.