Meditation, 1870 (oil on canvas)

The viewer is the object on which this young woman has fixed her eyes, lost in thought. The configuration of small needles suggests that she is knitting a sleeve. Her neatly braided hair is clasped on top of her head and she sits in an attitude of total relaxation, in a simple skirt and blouse with an embroidered apron on top. Perrault's formal training was with the Neo-Classical history painter François-Edouard Picot (1786-1868), but he also worked closely with his friend William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905). He took advantage, when the official government policy of eclecticism offered opportunities to exhibit a much wider range of subjects at the Paris Salon, by producing subject matter appealing to a bourgeois market, such as this intimate portrait of a peasant girl at work. He is well known for his sentimental portraits of children in rustic and mythological settings, which were a popular genre in mid-19th century painting. The attention to modelling, the beautiful skin tones and the overall polished appearance of his work helped to ensure that his simple subjects were appealing to the critics and Salon juries, as well as to the wider public. Perrault received numerous medals and was named a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur in 1887.