A young nude woman seated in profile to the right, with subsidiary studies of her hand

A study for the allegorical figure of the Odyssey seated at the feet on the right of Homer in the large picture of The Apotheosis of Homer executed in 1827 for the Louvre. The picture was commissioned in 1826 by the Comte de Forbin, Directeur-Général des Musées, for the ceiling of the Salle Clarac in the Musée Charles X in the Louvre. It decorated one of the rooms of Egyptian antiquities. The picture was ready to be exhibited for the Salon of 1827, which opened on 4 November. The picture, probably Ingres' finest history painting, was taken down for the Ingres exhibition at the 1855 Exposition Universelle and replaced by a copy, and is now hanging in the Louvre.
Drawings for Aeschylus and Aristachus were offered at Christie's New York, 28 January 2000, lot 104 and 30 January 1998, lot 196.