Flora and Zephyr
For now, just to look at
The photograph we have of this work is not sharp enough to print at the quality we want, so we are not selling it for now. We are looking for a better one.
About the work
- Date
- 1875
- Medium
- Oil on canvas, tondo (circular format)
- Dimensions
- 185 cm de diámetro
- Collection
- Musée des Beaux-Arts de Mulhouse, France
- Reference
- XDV-4349
What the museum label doesn't tell you
Look closely at Zephyr's wings: not angel feathers, but butterfly wings painted with entomological precision, eye-spots and all. That almost scientific detail turns a mythological embrace into something stranger, an oversized insect gripping a fainting woman among scattered flowers. Bouguereau could paint idealized flesh in his sleep, yet here he layers in a texture that feels foreign, almost predatory. Flora's arm gives way, her eyes shut, there's no reciprocity, only capture. Does this read as romance, or as nature quietly overtaking the nymph?
