'Springtime ' Pierre-Auguste Cot. (French 1837-1883) Oil on canvas, circa 1873. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Pierre-August Cot (1837-1883) received most of his academic training at the hands of Bouguereau , Cabanel and Léon Cogniet . He first exhibited at the Salon of 1863 . For the next two decades he enjoyed success as a painter of allegorical and historical pictures and as a fashionable portraitist . This painting ( Springtime' ) however remains his most celebrated work . It was exhibited to great acclaim at the Salon of 1873, which also featured Bouguereaus'  'Nymphs and Satyr ' ( see earlier post ) John Wolf bought both paintings after the close of the Salon.

A visitor to the Wolf home described the flirtatious duo in 'Springtime' as : " in the most dangerous and inflammable of the teens  ....the cunning eagerness with which the maid looks right  into the boys eyes is modern in meaning and antique in dress. ...."