William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905) was a French academic painter and one of the dominant figures of official Salon art in the late 19th century. Trained at the École des Beaux‑Arts and winner of the Prix de Rome, he specialized in highly finished mythological, religious, and genre scenes with idealized figures, especially women and children. Celebrated in his own time and later rejected by many modernists, Bouguereau has since been reevaluated for his technical mastery and influence on academic painting.