William Bouguereau

With Goupil et Cie., Paris (acquired directly from the artist on 13 February 1882)

With M. Knoedler & Co., New York (acquired from the above on 23 June 1886)

Winthrop B. Palmer, New York

Sotheby's, New York, 23 October 1990, lot 65 (consigned by the estate of the above)

Private Collection, New York (acquired from the above)

Doyle, New York, 11 May 2022, lot 7

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Goupil, Boussod & Valladon Sales Register, vol. 10, Paris 1879-1882, p. 202, no. 15908

L'Exposition des Beaux-Arts: Salon de 1882, exh. cat., Paris 1882, pp. 131, 141-142 (larger version exhibited)

Charles Vendryès, “Catalogue illustré des oeuvres de Bouguereau,” in Ludovic Baschet (ed.), Dictionnaire illustré des Beaux-Arts, Paris 1885, pp. 62-63

Marius Vachon, W. Bouguereau, Paris 1900, p. 155

Mark Steven Walker, “William Bouguereau: A Summary Catalogue of the Paintings” in William-Adolphe Bouguereau: L'Art Pompier, exh. cat., New York 1991, p. 72

Damien Bartoli and Frederick C. Ross, William Bouguereau, Catalogue Raisonné of his Painted Work, New York 2010, pp. 212-213, no. 1882/01A, illustrated in color

Painted circa 1882, this is a réduction of Bouguereau's painting of the same title which was exhibited at the Paris Salon of the same year, and is in the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana, La Habana, Cuba.

In a chapter of Baschet's illustrated book on the 1882 Salon titled "The Nude and the Undressed Woman," the Salon version of Twilight is praised by a critic as if he is showing it to an imagined companion: "She was not modern, this young woman half-veiled by a veil billowing in the breeze, walking on the crest of the waves, more undulating than the wave itself. Did she not seem adorable to him, with the soft hue of her flesh, and the tender yet perfectly formed contour of her chaste nudity? Was she not, in fact, a goddess, painted with very patient art and according to all the rules? For there are rules for painting goddesses. He agreed with this... How many nymphs without veils, and how many women without chemises we saw during our walk!" (Baschet, ed., pp. 141-2).