Adolphe-William Bouguereau was born in La Rochelle, France. He attended the Ecale Municipale de Dessin et de Peinture in 1942. He is one of history's greatest artistic geniuses. Rembrandt is said to have captured the soul of age. Bouguereau captured the soul of youth. Considering his consummate level of skill and craft, and the fact that the great preponderance of his works are life-size, it is one of the largest bodies of work ever produced by any artist. Add to that the fact that fully half of these paintings are great masterpieces, and we have the picture of an artist who belongs like Michelangelo, Rembrandt and Carravaggio, in the top ranks of only a handful of masters in the entire history of western art.