The composition of Christ on the Mountain was probably commissioned from Ingres in 1836, though the patron responsible is unknown, having been carefully concealed by Ingres for reasons unknown. The Musée Ingres possesses a calque of the subject, very close in composition to the present work but with some minor variations, in particular the positioning of the horizon line which is much higher in our sheet.1 There are further drawings relating to the subject, also at the Musée Ingres, with no fewer than three separate studies for the figure of the demon.2
Fascinatingly, as noted by Vigne and documented in a correspondence between Ingres and Édouard Gatteaux, Ingres requested that Théodore Chassériau make him a painted study based on one of the aforementioned drawings of the demon. Ingres specifically requested for Chassériau to use the black model, Joseph, who is perhaps best recognized as the model for the seated figure in the foreground of Géricault’s iconic work The Raft of The Medusa. The resulting painting by Chassériau is also in the collection of the Musée Ingres (fig.1), providing further fascinating context for this highly ambitious, yet perplexingly unrealized project by Ingres.
1. see G. Vigne, Dessins d'Ingres, Catalogue raisonné des dessins du musée de Montauban, Paris 1995, p. 448, no. 2526, p. 449, fig. 2526, reproduced
2. Ibid., nos. 2527-2529
