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Lot Essay
A preparatory drawing for the portrait of Madame Sigisbert Moitessier of 1851 in the Kress Collection at the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
Madame Clothilde-Ins de Foucauld was the daughter of Clothilde-Eugnie Belfoy and Charles-Edouard-Armand de Foucauld, a senior civil servant in the Department des Eaux et Frets. On 16 June 1842 she married Sigisbert Moitessier, a banker and the son of a lace merchant. In 1844 Charles Marcotte, a friend and colleague of Monsieur Foucauld, introduced the young couple to Ingres. Foucauld wanted Ingres to paint a portrait of his daughter. Ingres initially refused, but being struck by Madame Moitessier's beauty changed his mind, even considering the idea of painting her young daughter Catherine, later Vicomtesse Taillepied de Bondy, with her mother.
In addition to the full length portrait in the Kress Collection, Ingres painted a second portrait, in which Mme. Moitessier is seated, now in the National Gallery, London. Although started first, the seated portrait was only completed in 1856. The standing portrait was finished in 1851 but retouched in 1852. Madame Moitessier had therefore to wait for seven years to receive her first portrait and had sittings with the artist for over twelve years. Ingres was understandably taken with the sitter, for as Gautier commented on seeing a sketch of the head of Madame Moitessier in 1847, 'Never has beauty more regal, more superb and more Junoesque lent her proud figure to an artist's trembling pencil' (La Presse, 37 June 1847). On 15 December 1851, writing to Madame Gonse who also complained about the delay of her portrait, Ingres declared that 'the portrait of Madame Moitessier, certainly among the most important of my works, will be finished soon.'
The starting date for the 1851 portrait has been a contentious issue. Martin Davies has suggested that it was painted more rapidly than usual, while Blanc, Laborde and Lapauze believed in a slow development of the composition from as early as 1844. Most of the surviving documentation comes from the years 1850 and 1851 and provides a guide for the dating of the present study. A letter to Charles Marcotte dated June 1851 refers 'to a first sitting'. According to Lapauze 'In June, [Ingres] started the arms and hands and it was not until he was satisfied with this ensemble that he attached the beautiful head', H. Lapauze, Ingres sa Vie et son Oeuvre, Paris, 1911, p. 442. In the present study the head is only sketched and the attention focused on the position of the sitter's arms. in another study, on tracing paper, sold in these Rooms on 3 July 1990, lot 138, now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Ingres concentrated on the folds of the dress and on the arms, which were initially left hanging at the sitter's sides. Only at a later stage was the right arm brought up. The simplicity of the dress and the relative lack of jewellery would therefore link this study to the early stages of the sittings in the spring of 1851.
Lapauze compared Madame Moitessier with Minerva, while Gautier spoke of a Junoesque beauty. All the critics seem to recognize the nobility of a goddess in her features. Ingres' initial idea for the portrait was a clear reference to a goddess in a fresco of Hercules finding his son Telephos in Arcadia at Herculaneum. The position and scale of the arms are essential and remain a striking feature of the seated portrait of 1856. Ingres' fascination with the arms of the sitter, evident in the present study, made him draw and paint them enlarged. so much so that Madame Moitessier, through Ingres' friends Marcotte and Gatteaux, later begged the artist to have them reduced in size: 'True the lady does have heavy arms, but that is one more reason not to exaggerate the fact' (letter, 24 February 1855, Marcotte to Gatteaux).
Other studies for this portrait are in the Muse Ingres, Moutauban, in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in the Lyman Allyn Museum, New London, Connecticut and in the Jacques Dupont Collection, Paris.
Madame Clothilde-Ins de Foucauld was the daughter of Clothilde-Eugnie Belfoy and Charles-Edouard-Armand de Foucauld, a senior civil servant in the Department des Eaux et Frets. On 16 June 1842 she married Sigisbert Moitessier, a banker and the son of a lace merchant. In 1844 Charles Marcotte, a friend and colleague of Monsieur Foucauld, introduced the young couple to Ingres. Foucauld wanted Ingres to paint a portrait of his daughter. Ingres initially refused, but being struck by Madame Moitessier's beauty changed his mind, even considering the idea of painting her young daughter Catherine, later Vicomtesse Taillepied de Bondy, with her mother.
In addition to the full length portrait in the Kress Collection, Ingres painted a second portrait, in which Mme. Moitessier is seated, now in the National Gallery, London. Although started first, the seated portrait was only completed in 1856. The standing portrait was finished in 1851 but retouched in 1852. Madame Moitessier had therefore to wait for seven years to receive her first portrait and had sittings with the artist for over twelve years. Ingres was understandably taken with the sitter, for as Gautier commented on seeing a sketch of the head of Madame Moitessier in 1847, 'Never has beauty more regal, more superb and more Junoesque lent her proud figure to an artist's trembling pencil' (La Presse, 37 June 1847). On 15 December 1851, writing to Madame Gonse who also complained about the delay of her portrait, Ingres declared that 'the portrait of Madame Moitessier, certainly among the most important of my works, will be finished soon.'
The starting date for the 1851 portrait has been a contentious issue. Martin Davies has suggested that it was painted more rapidly than usual, while Blanc, Laborde and Lapauze believed in a slow development of the composition from as early as 1844. Most of the surviving documentation comes from the years 1850 and 1851 and provides a guide for the dating of the present study. A letter to Charles Marcotte dated June 1851 refers 'to a first sitting'. According to Lapauze 'In June, [Ingres] started the arms and hands and it was not until he was satisfied with this ensemble that he attached the beautiful head', H. Lapauze, Ingres sa Vie et son Oeuvre, Paris, 1911, p. 442. In the present study the head is only sketched and the attention focused on the position of the sitter's arms. in another study, on tracing paper, sold in these Rooms on 3 July 1990, lot 138, now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Ingres concentrated on the folds of the dress and on the arms, which were initially left hanging at the sitter's sides. Only at a later stage was the right arm brought up. The simplicity of the dress and the relative lack of jewellery would therefore link this study to the early stages of the sittings in the spring of 1851.
Lapauze compared Madame Moitessier with Minerva, while Gautier spoke of a Junoesque beauty. All the critics seem to recognize the nobility of a goddess in her features. Ingres' initial idea for the portrait was a clear reference to a goddess in a fresco of Hercules finding his son Telephos in Arcadia at Herculaneum. The position and scale of the arms are essential and remain a striking feature of the seated portrait of 1856. Ingres' fascination with the arms of the sitter, evident in the present study, made him draw and paint them enlarged. so much so that Madame Moitessier, through Ingres' friends Marcotte and Gatteaux, later begged the artist to have them reduced in size: 'True the lady does have heavy arms, but that is one more reason not to exaggerate the fact' (letter, 24 February 1855, Marcotte to Gatteaux).
Other studies for this portrait are in the Muse Ingres, Moutauban, in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in the Lyman Allyn Museum, New London, Connecticut and in the Jacques Dupont Collection, Paris.