The Maid
c. 1875
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
44.5 × 30.8 cm (17 1/2 × 12 1/8 in.); Framed: 76.9 × 63.5 × 12.7 cm (30 1/4 × 25 × 5 in.)
Classification
oil on canvas
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
117477
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This maid pours blood from a flayed ox’s head as she prepares to make a delicacy known as headcheese. Such paintings of everyday life were popular in late 19th-century France; as the nation experienced rapid industrialization and urbanization, audiences appreciated imagery that romanticized traditional rural life, with its perceived simplicity and virtuousness. François Bonvin regularly executed genre scenes reminiscent of works by 18th-century French artist Jean Siméon Chardin, who also celebra...
About the Artist
François Bonvin · 1817–1888
François Bonvin (1817–1887) was a French Realist painter whose quiet, meticulously observed canvases of domestic interiors and humble working-class subjects placed him among the most thoughtful and committed practitioners of the Realist movement in nineteenth-century France. Born in Vaugirard, on the outskirts of Paris, Bonvin came from modest origins and largely educated himself as an artist thro...