0766.27Orestes_Bouguereau

William-Adolphe Bouguereau, "Les Remords d'Oreste" or "Orestes Pursued by the Furies," 1862, Chrylser Collection, Norfolk, Virginia (acquired 1971).

Compare this to the Mei's earlier Orestes and Rahl's contemporary Orestes. Downman's chorus-full of frighteningly ugly Furies (cf. John Singer Sargent's) are different than these.

Bouguereau was capable of very sweet scenes: the Nut Gatherers and Innocence, for instance. In fact, his primary output was comprised of "far less dramatic pictures of beggar children, the Madonna, and cooly erotic mythological nudes." (Harrison, 46) His Aurora and "Night" (below, r.) demonstrate a posture B. applied in several paintings, identical to the front Erinys.

B's academic impulse shows in Orestes' stance, a mirror of the Borghese Gladiator (Louvre; below). But critical failure of the Orestes dashed the artist's hopes. Panned at the 1863 Salon, B. reversed his course: "I soon found that the horrible, the frenzied, and the heroic does not pay; and as the public of today prefers Venuses and Cupids and I paint to please the public, it is to Venus and Cupid I chiefly devote myself." (B. cited by A. Werner, 'Great Boug-Bear of Academic Painting,' Antioch Review Dec. 1955, 490, cited in J.C. Harrison French Paintings from the Chrysler Museum (Norfolk, 1991), click for .pdf.)