Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

Edouard Gatteaux, Paris
Edouard Brame, Paris
Paul Brame, Paris
Mme Paul Brame, Paris
Henri Brame, Paris (acquired by 1931)
Galerie Hector Brame, Paris
Galerie Paul Cassirer, Berlin (acquired by 1931)
Knoedler & Co., New York
Douglas H. Gordon, Annapolis, Maryland, (acquired by 1932) (Lugt 1130a)
Sale: Christie's, London, 6th/7th July 1987, lot 55
M. Masataka Tomita, (acquired by February 1988)
Acquired from the above by the late owner

Palais de Versailles, Exposition d'art rétrospectif, 1881, no. 190

Paris, Grand-Palais, Galeries Georges Petit, Exposition centennale de l'art français 1800-1889, 1900, no. 1088

Paris, Galeries Georges Petit, Ingres, 1911, no. 165

Chambre Syndicale de la Curiosité et des Beaux-Arts, Ingres, 1921, no. 120

Münich, Ludwigs-Galerie, Romantische Malerei in Deutschland und Frankreich, 1931, no. 43

Springfield, Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, David and Ingres

New York, M. Knoedler & Co, 1939-1940, no. 33

Cincinnati, Cincinnati Art Museum, The Place of David and Ingres in a century of French Paintings, 1940

San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 19th Century French Drawings, 1947, no.18, illustrated in the catalogue

Baltimore, Baltimore Museum of Art, From Ingres to Gauguin, French Nineteenth Century Paintings Owned in Maryland, 1951, no.7, illustrated in the catalogue

New York, Galerie Paul Rosenberg, Ingres in American Collections, 1961, no. 64, illustrated in the catalogue

Maryland, University of Maryland, College Park, Art Department, Hommage à Baudelaire, 1968, p. 33, illustrated in the catalogue

Louisville, Kentucky, The J.B. Speed Art Museum, In Pursuit of Perfection:  The Art of J.-A.-D. Ingres, 1983, no.75, illustrated in the catalogue

Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin & Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Linie, Licht und Schatten. Meisterzeichnungen und Skulpturen der Sammlung Jan und Marie-Anne Krugier-Poniatowski, 1999, no. 71, p. 156, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Venice, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, The Timeless Eye. Master Drawings from the Jan and Marie-Anne Krugier-Poniatowski Collection, 1999, no. 84, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Miradas sin Tiempo. Dibujos, Pinturas y Esculturas de la Coleccion Jan y Marie-Anne Krugier-Poniatowski, 2000, no. 98, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Paris, Musée Jacquemart-André, La passion du dessin. Collection Jan et Marie-Anne Krugier-Poniatowski, 2002, no. 87, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Vienna, Albertina Museum, Goya bis Picasso. Meisterwerke der Sammlung Jan Krugier und Marie-Anne Krugier-Poniatowski, 2005, no. 13, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Munich, Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Das Ewige Auge - Von Rembrandt bis Picasso. Meisterwerke der Sammlung Jan Krugier und Marie-Anne Krugier-Poniatowski, 2007, no. 82, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Albert Magimel, Œuvres de J.A.D. Ingres, Paris, 1851, no. 58

Théophile Silvestre, Histoire des artistes vivants, Paris, 1856, p. 36

Théophile Gautier, Ingres, "L'artiste", Paris, 5th  April 1857, p. 6

Jules Lecomte, Le Perron de Tortoni, Paris, 1863, p. 249

Olivier Merson and E. Bellier de la Chavignerie, Ingres, Paris, 1867, pp. 81, 113

Henri Delaborde, Ingres, Paris, 1870, no. 308

République française, Ministère de l'Instruction publique, des Cultes et des Beaux-Arts, Collection de 120 dessins, croquis et peintures de M. Ingres, classés et mis en ordre par son ami E. Gatteaux, reproduits en photographie par Ch. Marcille, photographe des Musées Nationaux, I, Paris, 1875, no. 49, illustrated

Collection des 120 dessins, croquis et peintures de M. Ingres classés et mis en ordre par son ami Edouard Gatteaux, Paris, illustrated pl. 10

Exposition rétrospective de Versailles, "La Chronique des Arts et de la Curiosité", Paris, 20th August 1881, p. 225

Both de Tauzia, Musée National du Louvre, dessins, cartons, pastels, et miniatures des diverses écoles, exposés, depuis 1879, dans les salles du 1er étage, deuxième notice supplémentaire, Paris, 1888, p. 141

Henri Jouin, Musée de portraits d'artistes, Paris, 1888, p. 75

Henri Lapauze, Les dessins de J.A.D. Ingres du Musée de Montauban, Paris, 1901, p. 266

Henri Lapauze, Les dessins de J.A.D. Ingres, Paris, 1903, no.26, illustrated p. 12

Jérome Doucet, Les peintres français, Paris, 1906, p. 119, illustrated

Henri Lapauze, Ingres, Paris, 1911, p. 286, illustrated p. 429

Ein neuer Naturalismus? Eine Rundfrage des Kunstblatts, Das Kunstblatt, Potsdam, September 1922, illustrated p. 386

H. Brame, Ingres et ses amis Gatteaux, pp. 16-17, illustrated p. 16

Lili Froehlich-Bum, Ingres, Vienna & Leipzig, 1924, pl. 57

Louis Hourticq, Ingres, Paris, 1928, p. 100

Morton Dauwen Zabel, "The Portrait Methods of Ingres", Art and Archeology, Washington, October 1929, p. 113 and p. 116

Hans Eckstein, Romantische Malerei in Deutschland und Frankreich, in Kunst und Künstler, XXIX, 11, Berlin, 1931,  illustrated p. 442

Jacques Mathey, Sur quelques portraits dessinés : par Ingres ou ses élèves ?, in Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de l'art français, Paris, 1932, pp. 197-198

Jacques Mathey, Ingres portraitiste des Gatteaux et de M. de Norvins, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Paris, August 1933, no. 2, illustrated pl. 7

Walter Pach, Ingres, London & New York, 1939, illustrated p. 207

John Lee Clarke, Jr, David and Ingres: The Classical Ideal, Art News, New York, 25th November 1939, p. 16

James W. Lane, David and Ingres View in New York, Art News, New York, 6th January 1940, illustrated p. 7

Hans Naef, Ingres und Cezanne als Bildnismaler, Werk, Winterthur, October 1946, illustrated p. 342

Karl Scheffer, Ingres, Bern, 1947, illustrated pl. 43

Claude Roger-Marx, Ingres, Lausanne, 1947, illustrated pl. 43

Anthony Bertram, Ingres, London and New York, 1947, illustrated pl. XXXIV

Jean Alazard, Ingres et l'Ingrisme, Paris, 1950, p. 107

From Ingres to Gauguin, The Baltimore Museum of Art News, Baltimore, November, 1951, illustrated p. 5

Adelyn D. Breeskin, From Maryland Collections : Brilliant Facets of French 19th Century Art, The Art Digest, New York, 15th November 1951, illustrated p. 11

Daniel Ternois, Les dessins d'Ingres au Musée de Montauban, les portraits, Inventaire général des dessins des musées de province, III, Paris, 1959, no. 57

Jean Sutherland Boggs, Portraits by Degas, Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1962, p. 13, illustrated pl. 26

Hans Naef, Die Bildniszeichnungen von J.A.D. Ingres, Bern, 1977-1980, vol.II, pp. 234, 403, 492-3, 501-2, vol. III, pp. 83, 171-2 and vol. V, pp. 318-319, no. 417

Picasso et la Photographie, (catalogue de l'exposition), Musée Picasso, Paris, 1995, illustrated p. 170

U. Fleckner, Abbild und Abstraktion. Die Kunst des Porträts im Werk von J.A.D. Ingres, Berliner Schriften zur Kunst, Vol.V, Mainz, 1995, pp. 162ff

Laid down on paper, mounted on a wooden stretcher. Paper discoloured more seriously in some areas than others (roughly corresponding to the different sheets of paper of which the drawing is composed) Scattered very light foxing. Sold in a modern carved and gilded frame.
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During the course of his long career, Ingres made only four large, multi-figure group portrait drawings like this.  The others, depicting The Forestier Family (1806; Paris, Louvre; Naef 33), The Family of Lucien Bonaparte (1815; Cambridge, MA, Fogg Art Museum; Naef 146) and The Stamaty Family (1818; Paris, Louvre; Naef 217) are all much earlier in date.  Not only the latest in date but also by far the most unusual of the four, the 1850 portrait of The Gatteaux Family is a monument both to Ingres’ life-long friendship with Jacques Edouard Gatteaux (1788-1881), seen here seated to the right, and to the artist’s extraordinary technical inventiveness.  A sculptor, medal-engraver and collector, Gatteaux had first met, and been drawn by, Ingres in Rome as early as 1813 (Naef 93), and from the early 1840s he became one of Ingres’ closest confidants, as well as a particularly avid collector of his friend’s drawings.  Most of Gatteaux’s extensive collections, including more than 100 drawings by Ingres, were, however, destroyed when his house in Paris burned down during the defeat of the Commune, in early 1871.   

The Gatteaux family also owned a large country house in Neauphile, near Versailles, where Ingres was a regular visitor, especially during the 1820s and early ‘30s.  During these years, he made portrait drawings of his friend Edouard (1834; Naef 345), and the latter’s parents, the medal-engraver Nicolas-Marie Gatteaux (1828; Naef 317) and his wife Louise-Rosalie (1825; Naef 291).  All three of these drawings (and also the 1813 portrait of Edouard) were destroyed in the 1871 fire, but are known through crayon-manner engravings made by Claude-Marie-François Dien.  Following the death in 1849 of his much-loved first wife, Madeleine (see lot 171), Ingres once more became a regular visitor to the Gatteaux house at Neauphile, and it was during this second period of closeness with the family that Ingres made the present, extraordinary group portrait, depicting the same three sitters whom he had earlier drawn individually, shown together with the standing figure of the parents’ orphaned grand-daughter, Paméla de Gardanne (1824-60), who had lived with the family until her marriage in 1846 to Edouard Brame, and another female figure, probably a cousin, in the far background to the left. 

What is extraordinary about this group portrait, though, is that although it seems at first sight to be a typically beautifully composed, unified composition, just like the other earlier group portraits, it is in fact a collage.  Ingres has taken impressions of the prints after his three earlier Gatteaux portraits, printed on very thin paper, has cut them out (along the outlines in the case of the parents, but reducing the portrait of Edouard to a bust-length image), and has pasted these trimmed prints down onto a backing sheet.  He then drew very extensively over and around these printed images, disguising the edges of the sheets, adding in the missing parts of Edouard in particular, as well as the two additional female figures, and creating an interior into which he has brilliantly integrated the entire group of figures.  In the process of achieving his composition, Ingres made working studies of the revised figure of Edouard and of the standing figure of Madame Brame, as well as a preparatory study, on tracing paper, for the whole composition, all of which are in Montauban (Vigne, 1995, 2654-2656). 

Though seamlessly unified in terms of composition, the Gatteaux family portrait is far from being an accurate record of the appearance of the family in the year 1850, since three of the likenesses actually date from much earlier and two of the sitters were already dead.  Edouard, who here appears as a relatively young man, was actually 62 years old by this time, while his mother was already dead for three years and his father for eighteen.  The standing figure of Paméla (who ultimately inherited the drawing) does, however, seem to be roughly the right age.  Despite its unusual genesis and technique, Ingres clearly thought well of his last major group portrait, and in 1851 he had it reproduced in engraving by Achille Réveil, in the process extending the image somewhat at the bottom.