The Reluctant Bride
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5e/Toulmouche_Bride.jpg/260px-Toulmouche_Bride.jpg)
The Reluctant Bride (French: La Fiancée Hésitante, sometimes translated as "The Hesitant Fiancée" or "The Hesitant Betrothed") is an 1866 oil painting by Auguste Toulmouche. The painting measures 65 cm × 54 cm (26 in × 21 in) and is signed and dated "A. Toulmouche / 1866".
Toulmouche had found success as a
Departing from Toulmouche's usual paintings of a single woman, this work is a more complicated composition showing a group of women in an opulently decorated room. At the centre, a young woman is seated in a flowing white satin silk dress with high collar trimmed with white fur. She stares out at the viewer, with an ambivalent expression that has attracted various interpretations. She is attended by two women of similar age: the woman to the left in a blue-grey satin gown with a patterned shawl bends to kiss her forehead, while the woman to the right in burnt orange velvet gown is crouching to hold her left hand. A girl stands to the right, looking in a mirror as she tries on a bridal headdress of orange blossom, echoing the central figure's bouquet.
The scene may be set in shortly before the wedding of the central young woman, waiting in a
The painting was put up for sale at Christie's in New York in October 1990, and again at Sotheby's in New York in April and October 2005, and is held in a private collection. The Sotheby's auction catalogue suggests it may have been exhibited in Paris at the 1866 Salon, and at the 1867 Exposition Universelle.
The work came to public attention in late 2023 when it was used to express women's anger on
References
- Auguste Toulmouche, "The hesitant betrothed", Sotheby's, 19th Century European Art, Lot 135, April 2005
- Auguste Toulmouche, "The hesitant betrothed", Sotheby's, 19th Century European Art, Lot 108, October 2005
- 1866 – Auguste Toulmouch, The Hesitant Fiancée, Sandra Muniz, Fashion History Timeline, 4 July 2018
- "Why Does This Bride Look So Mad?", Callie Holtermann, New York Times, 12 November 2023
- "The Hesitant Fiancée: this painting is helping women to express their rage on TikTok – here’s the story behind it", Cydney Thompson, The Conversation, 22 November 2023