Pietà

Bouguereau's eldest son Georges died in July 1875, only 16 years old, and his father sank into months of depression. This is what he made to climb out of it. On the surface it is a traditional Pieta, the Virgin cradling the dead Christ, ringed by mourning angels, and it was shown at the Salon of 1876. But look for the stone urn. It carries a Latin inscription in memory of his beloved son Georges, dead on the 19th of July 1875, which folds the painter's own loss straight into the sacred scene. Mary stares straight out from under a black cloak that swallows her whole body, meeting the eye of whoever stands before the canvas.