JEAN-AUGUSTE-DOMINIQUE INGRES
1780-1867
61 Madame Moitessier
Graphite and white chalk; H: 45.8 cm (18 in.); W: 33.6
cm (i3I/ 4 in.)
89.00.50
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: At top right, inscribed
with color notes in graphite; at bottom left, signed Ingres
in graphite.
PROVENANCE: Inès Moitessier, Paris; by descent; Edgar
Degas, Paris (sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, March
26, 1918, lot 210); private collection, Geneva; private col-
lection, New York; art market, London.
EXHIBITIONS: European Drawings, Hazlitt, Gooden and
Fox, Ltd., London, November-December 1988, no. 66.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: D. Bull, "London Old Master Draw-
ings," Burlington Magazine 131, no. 1030 (January 1989),
p. 50; Nineteenth Century French Drawings, exh. cat. (Haz-
litt, Gooden and Fox, Ltd., London, 1990), p. 22, under
no. 10.THIS STUDY WAS MADE IN PREPARATION FOR INGRESA
Portrait of Madame Moitessier of 1851 (National Gallery of
Art). The drawing is of the same scale as the painting and
is quite fully evolved in terms of Ingres's rendering of the
face and neck. The cool, rather cubistic character of the
facial features—central to the expressive nature of the
painting—is already present. By contrast the hair is more
broadly indicated, and the flowers decorating it are
shown in a most summary manner, with associated color
notes.
Although this is the only known drawing for the
head of Madame Moitessier, there are studies for the en-
tire figure in the National Gallery of Art (inv. 1951.14. i);
the Lyman Allyn Museum, New London, Connecticut
(inv. 1941.85); thej. Dupont collection, Paris; and thej.
Paul Getty Museum (inv. 91.66.79). There is also a sheet
with studies of her left arm in the Musée Ingres, Mont-
auban (inv. 867.321). A drawing similar to the present
one in scale, technique, and purpose, for Ingres's Portrait
of the Comtesse d'Haussonville (New York, Frick Collec-
tion), is in the Bibliothèque Inguimbertine, Carpen tras
(inv. 1899-407).JEAN-AUGUSTE-DOMINIQUE INGRES (French, 1780-1867). Ma-
dame Moitessier (detail). Oil on canvas. H: 146.7 cm (57^3 / 4 in.);
W: 100.3 cm (39/ 4 in.). Washington, D.C., National Gallery of
Art, Samuel H. Kress Collection.152 FRENCH SCHOOL • INGRES