Bouguereau's second wife, the American-born
Elizabeth Gardner Bouguereau (1837-1922) was herself an accomplished painter. Gardner was born into an elite family in Exeter, New Hampshire and traveled to Paris after the Civil War to study. Most art schools did not admit women at the time, so she had to disguise herself as a boy into order to gain admission. Her future husband was among her teachers, and they married in 1896. Gardner was the first woman ever to exhibit at the Salon as well as the first American woman to win the gold medal at the Academy.
Gardner's subject matter and style closely resembled that of her husband. Among her forty surviving paintings, idealized peasant children at play in the forest are the most common genre scenes. This is
In the Woods.
Bubbles.
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