Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Framed. The sheet is rather yellowed from being exposed to light (the margins are lighter from being covered by the mount). There is also foxing and some small white spots. A very small tear at the centre of the left margin (barely noticeable). The chalk, however, is still quite strong.
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This is Ingres' original study after a nude model, know previously only through a copy in the museum at Montauban.¹ It is considered to be for a spectator to the left in Ingres' monumental painting of the Martyrdom of St. Symphorien (fig. 1), although the figure is very different in the finished work.  The painting was commissioned from Ingres by the bishop of Autun in 1824, to replace Fra Bartolommeo's Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine which had been requisitioned by the Louvre.  There is a modello dated 1827, but the painting was not finished until 1834.  It still hangs in the cathedral at Autun.  Its reception at the Salon was mixed, with much criticism, which encouraged Ingres to apply for the directorship of the French Academy in Rome and to return to Italy to escape the unsympathetic professional atmosphere of Paris.

Ingres devoted a great deal of time to this commission, even visiting Autun to study the local architecture (the martyrdom of the saint took place at the Porte St. André in Autun circa 165 A.D.) and to see the pendant painting by Jean-Louis-César Lair which was already hanging in the cathedral.  He also made a very large number of preparatory studies, second in number only to those for The Golden Age.  Over two hundred are in the museum of Montauban and many others are in public and private collections around the world.  Vincent Pomarède writes that in this work, Ingres made a concerted effort not to depend on antique or earlier prototypes, but to work from live models to enhance the energy and veracity of the scene, which represents a new esthetic in his art.²  Other studies at Montauban show the figure of the spectator to the left in various poses, none exactly as in the painting.  The careful study and description of one aspect of the figure's anatomy and the free, sketchy description of other parts is found in other drawings in the Montauban group.

1. See G. Vigne, Dessins d'Ingres...du musée de Montauban, Paris 1995, p. 112, cat. no. 558, reproduced

2. See V. Pomarède et al., Ingres, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 2006, p. 242