Riposo

In 1879, while a handful of Paris painters were hanging their fourth Impressionist exhibition and being mocked for their unfinished-looking scenes, William-Adolphe Bouguereau was about as celebrated and as bankable as a painter could be. This is his world. A young Italian mother rests with her children under a tree, grouped in the calm triangle that Raphael had used for his Holy Families 400 years earlier, with the dome of Saint Peter's in Rome faint on the horizon. The polish is total, every edge smoothed away. A Cleveland banker named Hinman Hurlbut bought it straight from Bouguereau in July of that same year, and it has stayed in the city ever since.