William-Adolphe Bouguereau

This comes from Dante's Inferno — two of the damned caught in a fight with no end, apparently, and it's said to have shocked the 1850 crowd enough to make Bouguereau's name.

Apparently he was one of the best-paid painters in Paris in his day, then fell out of favor completely once Impressionism took hold — he didn't come back into fashion until decades later.

One critic at the time is said to have compared her to a balloon perched on a bonbon box — all polish, no real feeling. The French state bought the painting almost immediately anyway, while a very different crowd of painters, working just blocks away, could barely get their work into the same building.