Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

The artist's studio stamp (L.1477);
René Engel, Geneva

New York, Jan Krugier Gallery, The Presence of Ingres, Important Works by Ingres, Degas, Picasso, Matisse and Balthus, 1988, no. 44

Hinge mounted. There are some areas of surface dirt and light staining where the sheet has been hinged to the mount. Otherwise in good condition. Sold in a modern giltwood frame.
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One of over a hundred preparatory works by Ingres for L'Age d'Or, the vast majority of which are now housed in the Musée de Montauban,¹ it seems likely that the present work was intended as a preliminary study for one of the reclining couples set in the foreground of this Arcadian idyll.  The dominant inspiration behind this project was undoubtedly Raphael's Stanze in the Vatican, however the present work also shows the influence of Poussin on the elderly Ingres as the two reclining figures share a very close compositional similarity to those in the left foreground of Poussin's The Triumph of Flora. (Fig.1)

Originally commissioned by the Duc de Luynes for his home, the Château de Dampierre, Ingres intended L'Age d'Or and its pendant, L’Age de Fer, to be his final artistic legacy. Unfortunately, as so often in 19th-century France, politics intervened and following the Revolution of 1848 Ingres gave up his work on the project, leaving L'Age d'Or unfinished.

1. See G. Vigne, Dessins d'Ingres, Catalogue raisonné des dessins du musée de Montauban, Paris 1995, pp. 304-382