L14040

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拍品 97
  • 97

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

估價
150,000 - 200,000 GBP
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描述

  • Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
  • Study for Napoleon seated on his Imperial throne
  • Pen and brown ink and brown and blue grey wash over traces of graphite;
    signed in pen and brown ink, lower right: Ingres
    bears red chalk numbering, verso: 11 and attribution: Ingres and in pencil: à Mme. Leport (?)

來源

Eugène Guillaume;
Hector Lefuel;
Private Collection, France;
sale, Paris, Tajan, 6 November 2003, lot 103

展覽

Paris, Salon des Arts Unis, Dessins (d'Ingres) tirés de collections d'amateurs,1861;
Paris, Galerie André Weil, Ingres, 1949, no. 35;
Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Chefs-d’oeuvre des collections parisiennes, 1952-53, no.153

出版

H. Delaborde, Ingres, sa vie, ses  travaux, sa doctrine, Paris, 1870, p. 308, no. 382;
French Painting 1774-1830: The Age of Revolution, exhib. cat. Grand Palais, Paris, The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1975, p. 500;
H. Toussaint, Les portraits d’Ingres, peintures des Musées Nationaux, Paris, 1985, p. 37, no. V1, reproduced;
G. Tinterow and P. Conisbee, Portraits by Ingres: Image of an Epoch, 1999, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Arts, p.66

Condition

This drawing was inspected in the original by Jane McAusland on 17th June 2014. The following report is based on her comments. Hinge mounted and laid down on 19th century paper. There are areas of the sheet where the surface has been eaten by silverfish, in particular to the lower left and upper right corners and the right centre. The iron gall ink has sunk into the paper, as one would expect. The colours appear much lighter in the catalogue reproduction with the image far stronger in reality. The current condition of this work is commensurate with the techniques employed. Sold in its original carved and gilded French Empire frame.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

拍品資料及來源

This highly detailed presentation drawing for the instantly recognisable portrait of Napoleon seated on his Imperial throne (Fig. 1) offers the viewer an extraordinary insight into Ingres’ creative mind set as he went about composing the portrait of a man whose rapid rise to power led to his becoming arguably the most prominent figure in Europe at the beginning of the 19thCentury.

Judging by Ingres’ prodigious output of preparatory drawings for other important projects throughout the course of his career, one would expect him to have approached a commission of this importance in the same way. Interestingly, however, only a small number of drawings known to correspond with the project survive, five of which are housed in the collection of the Musée de Montauban. Amongst the Montauban group is a study of an Empereur d’Orient1 seated on a throne, copied by Ingres from a Byzantine ivory relief now housed in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. Armand Cambon, the artist’s close friend and student, believed that this was one of the key sources of inspiration for the composition of the portrait2 and given the very frontal pose of the sitter it is clear to see why. The remaining four studies, although relatively minor, are indisputably preparatory for the final work, with detailed studies for the Sceptre of Charles V3 and the Hand of Justice4 as well as a decorative border of bees5 and a small drapery study of Napoleon’s left leg and foot.6 Important and rare objects within the context of the commission, these individual drawings perfectly illustrate the emphasis that Ingres placed on symbols of power within the portrait.

The function that these other drawings served in the project is, however, completely different to that of the present work. Whilst the Montauban drawings demonstrate the artist’s focus on specific objects in preparation for the finished painting, this drawing offers his complete solution for the composition, making it undoubtedly the most important drawing known to exist for this commission as well as, given the now iconic status of the painting, arguably one of the most important drawings in the artist’s entire oeuvre.

The origins of Ingres’ imposing portrait of Napoleon seated on his Imperial throne are, rather surprisingly, not as illustrious as one might expect. A student of the pre-eminent French Revolutionary and Neoclassical artist Jacques Louis David, Ingres would undoubtedly have been exposed to his master’s portrayals of the new French leader, such as his celebrated versions of Napoleon crossing the Great St Bernard7 and even more influentially The Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon I and the Coronation of the Empress Josephine8 and Napoleon in His Imperial Robes.9 Ingres was himself given an opportunity to portray Bonaparte in 1803, when he was commissioned by the city of Liège to commemorate a visit from him in the capacity of First Consul. However Napoleon did not have time to sit for the young Ingres resulting in the artist having to rely instead on a painting of the same subject executed in 1802 by Baron Antoine-Jean Gros.10 The resulting work, Bonaparte, First Consul,11 was never shown in Paris, thus denying Ingres the acclaim he might have otherwise anticipated.

Still in his early twenties, Ingres’ reputation was clearly not yet well enough established to warrant an invitation to the coronation ceremony of Napoleon and Josephine in Nôtre Dame Cathedral on 2nd December 1804. However the celebration surrounding this event must have had an effect on Ingres who felt compelled, along with a number of other French artists, to celebrate the new order and glorify the Emperor. As such, after receiving a commission from the Corps Législatif shortly after the coronation ceremony, Ingres set out to portray France’s newly crowned leader in a painting of monumental scale and youthful self-confidence that would eventually be exhibited at the Salon of 1806.

Drawing on a variety of different sources Ingres manages to portray the politician, recently crowned Emperor of France and King of Italy, as a preordained ruler, whose authority and status over his subjects is absolute. Focusing in the present work on the trappings of Imperial symbolism and alluding heavily to Charlemagne as Napoleon’s precursor, Ingres places the Emperor on an elaborate throne, set on a carpeted dais decorated with the Carolingian eagle. The wall behind him is decorated with bees, a Frankish emblem recently revived by Napoleon to symbolise the industry and diligence of the new Republic of France under his leadership. On the same wall, hanging either side of Napoleon are the French Imperial coat of arms and the emblems of the Italian states recently assimilated into the French Empire. This traditional use of heraldry was again an attempt by Ingres to create an effect of time-honoured tradition in the portrait as well as to emphasise the legitimacy of Napoleon’s new found position. Interestingly, however, these coats of arms feature far less prominently in the final painting, perhaps an indication of the shift in government policy from what began in 1804 as an effort to justify the new regime by referencing France’s imperial past to a more modern presentation of the Emperor by the time the painting was exhibited at the Salon of 1806. If this was the case the present work offers us the only clear evidence of these changes ever having taken place, thus serving as the only measure by which to monitor the development of the painting in relation to the Ingres’ final study for it. The artist goes on to emphasise still further Napoleon’s military might by alluding to it through the inclusion of Charlemagne’s sword resting beneath his left arm. In a further effort to incorporate the powers of so many great rulers before him, Napoleon is crowned with laurel, like a Roman Emperor and holds aloft with his right hand the sceptre of Charles V (for which one of the aforementioned Montauban drawings was preparatory), which features a prominent statuette of Charlemagne atop it.

Beyond the layers of Imperial symbolism within the present work also exist some clear art historical influences for which Napoleon, ironically, was himself directly responsible. During his numerous military campaigns Napoleon’s armies managed to loot many extraordinary works of art and other trophies of war, which were housed in the Musée Napoléon (Musée du Louvre) in Paris. One of the highlights of this collection was Jan and Hubert van Eyck’s celebrated Ghent Altarpiece,12 the commanding central panel of which consists of a portrayal of God the Father seated with his right hand raised in blessing. This composition is mirrored by Ingres who depicts Napoleon resting the hand of justice on his left arm, a symbol of his power to dispense justice and in this instance a rather disturbing juxtaposition of the human and divine. A further influence of the Ghent Altarpiece on Ingres is the notably frontal position that he adopts for Napoleon, a dramatic departure from some of the more indulgent poses of the Baroque manner and a conscious effort by the artist to once again look back to a bygone age to reflect a sense of stability and permanence.

Though the final painting received a fairly unflattering reception at the Salon of 1806, being described by the Minister of the Interior, Jean-Baptiste de Nompère de Champagny, as “too insufficient as a likeness and too flawed for it to be presented to H. M. the Emperor”13 the reason both the painting and the present drawing endure so powerfully is due to the fact that, beyond the superficial likeness of the sitter, Ingres has, in somewhat of a fantasy, managed to encapsulate perfectly so many of the dominant traits in Napoleon’s character for which history remembers him. Between his steely eyed stare and clenched jaw, his unshakeable authority and seeming infallibility, we begin to see him not for what he was but what he became; the man whose irrepressible megalomania was to lead to his own eventual downfall.

1. G. Vigne, Dessins d'Ingres, Catalogue raisonné des dessins du museé de Montauban, Paris 1995, p. 497, no. 2751, reproduced
2. Ibid., under no. 2751
3. Ibid., no. 2754, reproduced
4. Ibid., no. 2755, reproduced
5. Ibid., no. 2753, reproduced, p. 496
6. Ibid., no. 2752, reproduced
7. An example of which can be found at the Musée national des Châteaux de Malmaison et Bois-Préau, Reuil-Malmaison, Inv. no. 49.7.1
8. Musée du Louvre, Paris, Inv. no. 3699
9. Palais des Beaux Arts, Lille, Inv. no. P.438
10. Musée de la Légion d’honneur, Paris, Inv. no. 04378
11. Musée Curtius, Liège
12. St. Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent
13. see G. Tinterow & P. Conisbee, Portraits by Ingres: Image of an Epoch, New York 1999, p. 69