The Scarlet Letter c1861 by French Painter Hugues Merle (1822 – 1881); who specialized in paintings that depicted sentimental heart warming scenes and moral subject matter. His work is often compared to that of French Painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau; which you can also find in the Xzendor7 Classical Art Shop.
Nathaniel Hawthorne author of the novel “The Scarlet Letter”, published in 1850, regarded this painting, which William Walters (1820 – 1894; Businessman and Art Collector) commissioned from Merle in 1859, as the finest illustration of his novel.
This is a retouched digital art old masters reproduction of a public domain image.
Info Below From Wikipedia.org
Hugues Merle was born in 1822 in La Sône. He studied painting with Léon Cogniet. Merle started exhibiting at the Salon (Paris) in 1847. He received second class prizes in 1861 and 1863.[2] In 1866 he was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.
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.[3] Merle was later often compared to Bouguereau and “became a considerable rival of Bouguereau in subject and treatment”. In the mid-1860s, Merle painted several portraits of Paul Durand-Ruel, his wife, and their son, John.