The Shepherdess

The Shepherdess, also known as The Little Shepherdess, is a painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau completed in 1889. The title is taken from the Southern French dialect. The painting depicts an idyllic, pastoral scene of a lone young woman in peasant attire posed for the artist, balancing a stick across her shoulders, standing barefooted in the foreground. In the background are oxen grazing in a field.
It is one of many paintings by Bouguereau depicting shepherdesses, including one of the same name created in 1881. The subject is a model employed by Bouguereau for this and other paintings, including The Bohemian.
The Shepherdess is currently in the permanent collection at the Philbrook [Museum of Art] in Tulsa, where it has become an emblematic image for the museum. It was the central image of a travelling exhibition about Bouguereau and his students that Philbrook created in 2006.