Detail of Soap Bubbles by Couture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, November 2009

Artist: Thomas Couture (French, 1815–1879)

Title: Soap Bubbles

Date: ca. 1859

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 51 1/2 x 38 5/8 in. (130.8 x 98.1 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Bequest of Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, 1887

Accession Number: 87.15.22


Gallery Label:

Couture triumphed at the Salon of 1847 with his "Romans of the Decadence" (Musée d'Orsay, Paris), a monumental canvas whose depiction of a Roman orgy was interpreted as a satire of the corrupt regime of the July Monarchy (1830–48). With "Soap Bubbles," he reused a traditional vanitas image: the bubbles symbolize the transience of life, while the wilting laurel wreath on the wall suggests the fleeting nature of praise and honors. The word "immortalité," inscribed on the paper inserted in the framed mirror, reinforces the painting's allegorical content.

In 1867, Édouard Manet, who studied in Couture's Paris atelier, painted "Boy Blowing Bubbles" (Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon), which, although recalling Couture's precedent, counters his master's allegory with an emphatically naturalistic portrayal.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/europe...