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Hugues Merle was a French painter who mostly depicted sentimental or moral subjects. He has often been compared with William-Adolphe Bouguereau.

Merle was born in 1822 in La Sône. He studied painting with Léon Cogniet. Hugues Merle became a friend of Paul Durand-Ruel in the early 1860s. Durand-Ruel had started buying paintings by Merle in 1862 and introduced the artist to painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau. Merle was later often compared to Bouguereau and “became a considerable rival of Bouguereau in subject and treatment”.

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