Bouguereau’s The Prayer, recreated by chalk artist Cuong Nguyen in Palo Alto 2009. Click for bigger.

The Palo Alto Festival of the Arts [official website] is an annual “high quality, community-friendly” event, which attracts over 150,000 people from throughout California and the West Coast. One of the main attractions is the Italian Street Painting Expo.

In August 2009, seventy chalk artists created larger-than-life works of art on the Tasso Street. One of the works on show was this recreation of Bouguereau’s 1865 painting La Prière (The Prayer, shown below). The chalk artist is Cuong Nguyen; he posted the photo on Flickr under the name icuong.

Click the image to visit the gallery where you will find several contemporary versions of the same artwork.