Bouguereau is perfectly in tune with the Biblical style, holding annual exhibitions in the Salon de Paris (an official painting exhibition of the Academy of Fine Arts). One critic observed, "M. Bouguereau has a genius and an innate knowledge of lines. The balance of the human body occupies his mind [...] One can only admire him. for trying to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors. [...] Raphael has also been influenced by the classics. No one has the right to criticize him for being un original. " [4]
Raphael was an artist that Bouguereau liked very much. He took this criticism as a compliment. He met one of the requirements of the Prix de Rome scholarship by completing a painting copied from Raphael's "Triumph of Galatea". In many of his works, he pursued the same Classical approach to layout, form, and theme. [5]
Bouguereau's portraits of women are both beautiful and seductive, in part because he can embellish a model's beauty and also retain her inherent features.