Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Georges de Montbrison, Château de Saint-Roch, Le Pin (Tarn-et-Garonne) (acquired from the artist and sold: Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May 13, 1904, lot 25)
Lecomte Collection, Paris
Private Collection

Montauban, Hôtel de Ville, Expositions des Beaux-Arts..., May 1862, no. 549
Lille, Explication des ouvrages de peinture, dessin, sculpture... figurant à l'exposition des Beaux-Arts ouverte dans la ville de Lille, 1866, no. 831
Paris, Palais de l'École Impériale des Beaux-Arts, Catalogue des tableaux, études peintes, dessins et croquis de J.-A.-D. Ingres, 1867, no. 80

Charles Blanc, Ingres: sa vie et ses ouvrages, Paris, 1870, p. 232
Henri Delaborde, Ingres, sa vie, ses traveaux, sa doctrine, d'après les notes manuscrites et les lettres du maître, Paris, 1870, p. 242, no. 91
A.-J. Boyé, called Boyer d'Agen, Ingres, d'après les note manuscrites et les lettres du maître, Paris, 1909, p. 446
Georges Wildenstein, Ingres, New York, 1954, p. 192, no. 145, illustrated p. 197, fig. 96
Georges Wildenstein, Ingres (2nd, revised edition), London, 1956, p. 192, no. 145, illustrated p. 197, fig. 96
Emilio Radius and Ettore Camesasca, L'Opera completa di Ingres, Milan, 1968, p. 101, no. 107b, illustrated
Daniel Ternois and Ettore Camesasca, Tout l'oeuvre peint d'Ingres, Paris, 1971, p. 101, no. 108b, illustrated
Daniel Ternois, Ingres (French ed.), Milan, 1980, p. 179, no. 161, illustrated
Annalisa Zanni, Ingres: catalogo completo dei dipinti, Florence, 1990, pp. 91-2
Georges Vigne, Ingres, Paris, 1995, p. 333

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work is in beautiful condition. The canvas is unlined and is still stretched on its original stretcher. The painting is probably not completely clean, but it does not feel dirty. There are patches of old varnishes visible under ultraviolet light. However, much of the face seems to be clean. Retouches are visible around the edges to address some frame abrasion and in a few tiny spots in the lower left in the armor. The work is essentially uncompromised and in lovely condition. The canvas could be relaxed in order to soften a horizontal stretcher mark through the center and a careful cleaning may remove some of the older varnish that does cause a slightly patchy surface. However, the painting could certainly be presented as it is.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Ingres was an assiduous student of armor, as evidenced by several preparatory studies for his historical paintings that are preserved in the Musée Ingres in Montauban. That armor worn by the Condottiere, as Ingres called the present painting, would appear to have been inspired by a portrait of an unknown warrior by the Venetian Renaissance master Sebastiano del Piombo. Although the original of that work, now in The Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, would have been unavailable to Ingres, there is a replica of the painting in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence, where Ingres is known to have made several copies. (For the portrait by Sebastiano and the Pitti copy, see M. Hirst, Sebastiano del Piombo, Oxford 1981, p. 90 and note 29, where the former is illustrated pl. 65.)

The present work is very likely a preparatory study for the soldier at the extreme right in the artist's The Entrance into Paris of the Dauphin, the Future Charles V (fig. 1). That work was commissioned by the Marquis de Pastoret and is likewise signed and dated 1821. Incidentally, the knight, has been tentatively identified as representing the Maréchal d'Audreheim (see: E.A. Bryant, "Notes on J.A.D. Ingres' 'Entry into Paris of the Dauphin, future Charles V'," Wadsworth Atheneum Bulletin, Winter 1959, p. 18.) Even though the soldier in The Wadsworth painting differs from this work in physiognomy and armor type, the pose in both is identical, seen most clearly by the left shoulder thrust forward into the picture plane. The present lot has much in common with oil studies of individual heads that Ingres made for other works, such as those for the figures of St. Matthew and St. John, in the Louvre and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, relating to Jésus remettant les clefs du Paradis à Saint Pierre (see: lot 81, Sotheby's, New York, November 4, 2011). As with the present canvas, those studies are notable for their rugged, individualized features and high degree of finish.