Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres: 9 works

'Ingres studied in Paris under Jacques-Louis David and was a prodigious draftsman. A great admirer of High Renaissance Italian painting, especially the work of Raphael, Ingres spent many years in Rome.'

'Although he trained in the studio of the celebrated Neoclassical history painter Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825), Ingres defies easy classification. This intimate painting reflects Ingres's Romantic fascination with the lives of artists of the past whom he admired-in this case, Raphael.'

'Ingres was beginning his second year as a pensionnaire when Lethière arrived in October 1807. From 1808 to 1818, Ingres executed no fewer than ten portraits of Lethière, including this virtuoso sheet depicting the middle-aged director in all of his convivial pomposity.'

'Edgar Degas, a great admirer of Ingres, once owned the unfinished canvas.'

'Grantham, who commissioned this portrait himself, stands confidently against a distant view of Saint Peter's Basilica, an important site for Grand Tourists and one that Ingres often included in portraits.'

'Ingres made many such preparatory sketches for his four painted portraits of Inès Moitessier, a banker's wife from a prominent family of government officials.'

'Edgar Degas, a great admirer of Ingres, once owned this drawing.'

'Ingres has simplified Madame Moitessier's features, recalling a Greco-Roman ideal.'

'The comparison is not surprising considering the importance of antique statuary for the Neoclassical movement of which Ingres was the leader.'