“Madame Moitessier” by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres ( The National Gallery, London)

“Madame Moitessier” by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

“Madame Moitessier” by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres is a portrait of Marie-Clotilde-Inès Moitessier (née de Foucauld) begun in 1844 but not completed until twelve years later. Madame Moitessier (1821–1897) was the daughter of a French civil servant who married a wealthy banker and merchant, who was a widower twice her age.

In this painting, she is shown wearing abundant jewelry and dressed in an elegant silk dress with a floral pattern, which is echoed by the flowers and leaves of the gilt-framed mirrors. Madame Moitessier is framed on either side by mirrors, and her profile reflection can be seen in the mirror on the right.

Ingres, who in the 1840s was at the peak of his career, was initially reluctant to accept this portrait commission and refused her husband’s request for a portrait of his wife. However, when Ingres met Madame Moitessier, he was struck by her beauty and agreed to produce a portrait.

The painting took twelve years to complete due to many interruptions in the artist’s and subject’s lives. Work on this canvas was suspended when the death of Ingres’ wife left him unable to work for many months. Then Madame Moitessier was unavailable due to pregnancy and subsequently the death of her father. So over seven years later, Ingres began again, painting a different portrait of the subject showing her standing in a dark dress.

The standing picture of Madame Moitessier is in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC and shows Madame Moitessier looking much more solemn. Ingres then returned to his first composition this seated portrait, which he completed in 1856. This seated portrait shows a smiling Madame Moitessier, compared to the standing portrait in the black dress is a much soberer portrait.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Ingres was a French Neoclassical painter who thought of himself as a painter of history and who today is highly regarded for his many portraits.

Critics often found his style bizarre and archaic. However, his expressive distortions of form and space make him an important precursor of modern art. His work influenced Picasso and Matisse and other modernists.

Madame Moitessier

Title: Madame Moitessier
Artist: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Created: 1856
Media: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: H: 120 cm (47.2 in); W: 92.1 cm (36.2 in)
Museum: The National Gallery, London

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Artist: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Born: 1780 – Montauban, Languedoc, France
Died: 1867 (aged 86) – Paris, France
Movement: Neoclassicism
Masterpieces:
- Ruggiero Freeing Angelica
- The Valpinçon Bather
- The Turkish Bath
- Grande Odalisque
- Madame Moitessier ( The National Gallery, London)
- Madame Moitessier (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)

Explore The National Gallery

13th Century Paintings

“The Virgin and Child Enthroned, with Narrative Scenes” by Margarito d’Arezzo – 1264
“The Virgin and Child” by Master of the Clarisse – 1268
“Crucifix” by Master of Saint Francis – 1270

14th Century Paintings

Wilton Diptych – 1395
“The Annunciation” by Duccio – 1311
“The Healing of the Man born Blind” by Duccio – 1311

15th Century Paintings

“Arnolfini Portrait” by Jan van Eyck – 1434
“The Battle of San Romano” by Paolo Uccello– 1440
“Venus and Mars” by Sandro Botticelli – 1483
“Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan” by Giovanni Bellini– 1501

16th Century Paintings

“Mystic Nativity” by Sandro Botticelli – 1550
“Virgin of the Rocks” by Leonardo da Vinci – 1506
“The Madonna of the Pinks” by Raphael – 1507
“The Raising of Lazarus” by Sebastiano del Piombo– 1519
“Salvator Mundi” by Andrea Previtali – 1519
“Bacchus and Ariadne” by Titian – 1523
“The Ambassadors” by Hans Holbein the Younger – 1533
“Mary Magdalene” by Girolamo Savoldo – 1540
“Saint George and the Dragon” by Tintoretto – 1558
“The Family of Darius before Alexander” by Paolo Veronese – 1567
“Diana and Actaeon” by Titian – 1569
“The Rape of Europa” by Paolo Veronese – 1570
“The Death of Actaeon” by Titian – 1575
“The Origin of the Milky Way” by Tintoretto – 1575

17th Century Paintings

“Supper at Emmaus” by Caravaggio – 1601
“Samson and Delilah” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1610
“Christ in the House of Martha and Mary” by Diego Velázquez – 1618
“The Judgement of Paris” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1635
“Aurora abducting Cephalus” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1637
“Equestrian Portrait of Charles I” by Anthony van Dyck – 1638
“Venus at her Mirror” by Diego Velázquez – 1651
“The Courtyard of a House in Delft” by Pieter de Hooch – 1658
“Self Portrait at the Age of 63” by Rembrandt – 1669
“A Young Woman standing at a Virginal” by Johannes Vermeer – 1670

18th Century Paintings

“Bacchus and Ariadne” by Sebastiano Ricci – 1713
“A Regatta on the Grand Canal” by Canaletto – 1740
“Mr and Mrs Andrews” by Thomas Gainsborough – 1749
“Eton College” by Canaletto – 1754
“An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump” by Joseph Wright of Derby – 1768
“Self-portrait in a Straw Hat” by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun – 1782

19th Century Paintings

“Portrait of Doña Isabel de Porcel” by Francisco Goya – 1805
“The Emperor Napoleon I” by Horace Vernet – 1815
“Dido Building Carthage” by J. M. W. Turner – 1815
“Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows” by John Constable – 1831
“The Execution of Lady Jane Grey” by Paul Delaroche – 1833
“The Fighting Temeraire” by Joseph Mallord William Turner – 1839
“Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway” by J. M. W. Turner – 1844
“Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna is carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence” by Frederic Leighton – 1855
“Madame Moitessier” by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres– 1856
“The Gare St-Lazare” by Claude Monet – 1877
“Bathers at Asnières” by Georges Seurat – 1884
“Sunflowers” by Vincent van Gogh – 1888
“Tiger in a Tropical Storm” by Henri Rousseau – 1891
“After the Bath, Woman Drying Herself” by Edgar Degas – 1895
“Boulevard Montmartre at Night” by Camille Pissarro – 1898