Madame Moitessier
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres1851
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
When his friend Marcotte first suggested that Ingres paint Ines Moitessier, the wife of a financier and jurist, he demurred. Ingres changed his mind after being struck by her "terrible et belle tête" (terrible and beautiful head.) The author Théophile Gautier described her as "Junolike," and Ingres presents her with the imposing remoteness of a Roman goddess. Her stance is severe and strongly silhouetted, her monumental shoulders stark ivory against the somber, restricted colors around her.
Ingres insisted on painting every detail from life, so he could achieve, in his words, "the faithful rendering of nature that leads to art." With minute accuracy he has recorded the light–absorbing darkness of her lace and velvet costume, the gleam of gold jewelry, the gloss of her elaborate coiffure. The emphatic reality of these details contrasts with her unfocused gaze, contributing to the sense that she is somehow removed from life.
Ingres began to pose Madame Moitessier in the 1840s, but the work languished. This second attempt was begun after the aging artist—he was 71—had been roused from depression by the prospect of his remarriage in 1852.
More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication _French Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I: Before Impressionism_, which is available as a free PDF <u>https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/french-paintings-nineteenth-century.pdf</u>
- Title: Madame Moitessier
- Creator: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
- Date Created: 1851
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 147 x 100 cm (57 7/8 x 39 3/8 in.) framed: 176.5 x 131.4 x 8.9 cm (69 1/2 x 51 3/4 x 3 1/2 in.)
- Provenance: The sitter, Marie-Clothilde-Inès, née de Foucauld [1821-1897], and her husband, Paul Sigisbert Moitessier [1799-1889]; their elder daughter, Clothilde-Marie-Catherine, comtesse de Flavigny [1843-1914], by 1911;[1] her sister, Françoise-Camille-Marie, vicomtesse Taillepied de Bondy [1850-1934], by 1921;[2] probably her son, François,[3] comte Taillepied de Bondy [b. 1875]; sold 1935 to (Paul Rosenberg & Co., London, New York, and Paris); sold 1945 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1946 to NGA. [1] Illustrated in Henry LaPauze, _Ingres, sa vie et son oeuvre (1780-1867) d'apres documents inédites_, Paris, 1911: 440-446, 452-461, as in the collection of the comtesse de Flavigny. [2] Cited as belonging to Mme la Vicomtesse Olivier de Bondy in _Exhibition Ingres_, Association Franco-Américaine, Chambre Syndicale de la Curiosité et des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1921, no. 44. [3] Information in NGA curatorial files, and from Paul Rosenberg and other sources refer to Marie de Bondy's son as "Comte O. de Bondy." However, published sources on the Taillepied de Bondy family list Marie's sons as François, Robert [predeceases Marie], and Jean; Marie's husband, Comte Olivier de Bondy, predeceases her as well. As the painting was acquired by Paul Rosenberg & Co. in the year following Marie de Bondy's death, it is most likely to have passed through the hands of François, her elder surviving son. As the oldest son, François is also likely to have "Olivier" as part of his given name, though it has not appeared in published genealogical sources. [4] See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1316.
- Rights: CC0
- Medium: oil on canvas
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