Girl on a Donkey

Girl on a Donkey from c. 1832-55 is a watercolor and graphite study depicting a young woman riding a donkey—a subject that belongs to the tradition of Italian genre painting that was popular among French artists who had studied at the Villa Medici in Rome. Pils was a Prix de Rome winner who spent formative years in Italy, and his genre studies of Italian rural life combine the direct observation of on-site watercolor with the compositional refinement of academic training. The wide date range suggests that this study may have been produced at different periods during Pils's career, or that it revisits a subject that he returned to multiple times.

Pils's Italian genre studies participate in the long tradition of French artists documenting Italian rural life that stretches from Claude Lorrain through the Barbizon painters. The girl on a donkey is a classic Italian genre subject—the kind of scene that French artists encountered in the Roman Campagna and that provided the compositional raw material for larger, more finished paintings. The watercolor medium preserves the immediacy of the on-site observation that Pils brought to his Italian subjects.

Girl on a Donkey is Pils's Italian genre in watercolor: the kind of on-site observation that French Prix de Rome winners made in the Roman Campagna, preserved in the informal medium that captures the immediacy of direct observation. The wide date range suggests a subject that Pils returned to multiple times throughout his career.