Ingrès
(1780-1867)

The French Neo-Classical painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingrès assumed the role of a guardian of academic orthodoxy against the ascendant Romantic style represented by his nemesis, Eugène Delacroix.

A student of David, Ingrès’s style developed in opposition to the Romanticism of Delacroix. Early works include portraits of the first Napoléon. He studied and worked in Rome about 1807 to 1820, where he began the Odalisque series of sensuous female nudes, then went to Florence, returning to France in 1824. Later he painted huge ceilings for the Louvre and for the cathedral at Autun.

Although he thought of himself as a painter of history in the tradition of Poussin and David, by the end of his life it was his meticulously detailed and highly polished portraits that were recognized as his greatest legacy.