The Nut Gatherers

Two barefoot girls sit at the edge of the woods, one turned to the other, a few hazelnuts between them. Bouguereau finished this in 1882, at the height of his fame, when his polished, sweetly idealised scenes of country childhood were exactly what the market wanted. You can watch that market move around this very canvas. He sold it within weeks, to the Paris dealer Goupil, and within a fortnight it had crossed to a dealer in New York. It changed American hands a few more times before James Scripps of Detroit bought it in 1886, and his family gave it to the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1954. There it became, and long stayed, one of the most loved paintings in the building.