Elizabeth Gardner BOUGUEREAU - Signed autograph letter.

(W.BOUGUEREAU) – Elizabeth GARDNER-BOUGUEREAU (1837.1922)

Signed autograph letter.

A ½ in-12° page. Paris. May 11, 1902.

« Dear Commander, My husband has asked me to write to you and with all my heart I join him in telling you that he will be proud and happy to give you the insignia of your new decoration. Your old friend has just received your tie and Cross of the Grand Chancery and when you meet you will agree on a time that can suit you both. I can tell you that he intends to be at his workshop on Wednesday from 1 a.m. to 3 ½ p.m. Please accept, Sir and friend, for you and yours, the assurance of our faithful affection. Élisabeth Gardner-Bouguereau »

Elizabeth GARDNER-BOUGUEREAU , American painter, learned drawing and watercolor at Lasell College. She was the first American woman painter to exhibit at the Paris Salon in 1866 and the first to win the gold medal in 1872. She studied with Ange Tissier, Jules Joseph Lefebvre then with William Bouguereau whom she married in 1896. Influenced by her husband in her way of painting, she admitted: " I would rather be known as the best imitator of Bouguereau than to be nobody ."