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拍品專文
A study for Pius VII celebrating the Papal mass of the Christ during Holy Week, an oil painting measuring 74.5 x 92.7 cm. now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington (Fig. 1; inv. 1952.2.23). The painting was commissioned in 1812 by Ingres’s great friend and patron Charles Marcotte d’Argenteuil (1773-1864), a French civil servant. When completed it was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1814. The idea for the painting came to Ingres as early as 1807 when he had attended Holy Week ceremonies in the Sistine Chapel. He made a few drawings in graphite of cardinals and other attendants at the ceremony such as an halberdier and some quick sketches of the interior of the chapel including one of the papal throne which he annotated ‘Jour de paque/ chapelle sixtine’ (G. Vigne, dessins d’Ingres. Catalogue raisonné des dessins du musée de Montauban, Paris, 1995, no. 1005). A year later, in 1808, he made a watercolor formerly with the Shepherd Gallery (cat. Christian Imagery in French Nineteenth Century Art 1789-1906, 1980, no. 17) of the pope seen from behind, praying at the altar of Saint Peter, and in 1809, another showing the pope at prayer before the throne in the Sistine Chapel, flanked by two cardinals and a halberdier (Besançon, Musée des Beaux-Arts; Eitner, 2000, op. cit., p. 286, fig. 1). In 1812 Ingres showed Marcotte a drawing of the interior of the Sistine chapel that he found ‘remarquable’ and prompted him to commission the painting from the artist. It is possible that the drawing Ingres showed Marcotte is the present one.
This preparatory watercolor establishes the setting of the projected painting. Ingres has rendered with minute detail, almost like a miniaturist, the papal throne which stands before the north wall of the chapel, the painted decorations of the wall and the frescoes above. These are, from left to right, The crossing of the Red Sea attributed to Cosimo Roselli or Biagio d’Antonio, Scenes from the life of Moses by Botticelli, and The Baptism of Christ by Perugino. On the right of the watercolor is the left part of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment.
The present watercolor differs from the National Gallery of Art’s picture in several ways. The chapel is seen from a somewhat lower vantage point; as a result, the steps of the dais on which the papal throne is placed are not visible from behind the partition. In the painting Ingres included, far right, part of the altar which stands at the center of the Last Judgment, but in the watercolor he cropped the scene immediately to the right of the sacristy door. Moreover, in the picture the frescoes by Botticcelli and Perugino are represented in their entirety, whereas they appear truncated in the present work. Many of the figures in the painting are absent in the preparatory study, notably the Pope and the multitude of attendants surrounding him on or near the dais, the groups standing close to the altar and the eight ‘caudatori’ dressed in brown and red vestments to the left of the pontiff. In the watercolor the six cardinals at the lower left of the composition are seated, whereas in the painting they are seven present, all of whom stand.
The presence or not of the Pope in the painting could be seen as controversial. In July 1809 Pius had been brutally taken from Rome by the French occupation forces, because he had opposed Napoleon’s annexation of the Papal States. When Ingres planned his painting, the Pope was a prisoner in Fontainebleau. To represent this victim of Napoleonic aggression in a picture destined for a high official of the empire was to touch on a painfully sensitive issue.
This preparatory watercolor establishes the setting of the projected painting. Ingres has rendered with minute detail, almost like a miniaturist, the papal throne which stands before the north wall of the chapel, the painted decorations of the wall and the frescoes above. These are, from left to right, The crossing of the Red Sea attributed to Cosimo Roselli or Biagio d’Antonio, Scenes from the life of Moses by Botticelli, and The Baptism of Christ by Perugino. On the right of the watercolor is the left part of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment.
The present watercolor differs from the National Gallery of Art’s picture in several ways. The chapel is seen from a somewhat lower vantage point; as a result, the steps of the dais on which the papal throne is placed are not visible from behind the partition. In the painting Ingres included, far right, part of the altar which stands at the center of the Last Judgment, but in the watercolor he cropped the scene immediately to the right of the sacristy door. Moreover, in the picture the frescoes by Botticcelli and Perugino are represented in their entirety, whereas they appear truncated in the present work. Many of the figures in the painting are absent in the preparatory study, notably the Pope and the multitude of attendants surrounding him on or near the dais, the groups standing close to the altar and the eight ‘caudatori’ dressed in brown and red vestments to the left of the pontiff. In the watercolor the six cardinals at the lower left of the composition are seated, whereas in the painting they are seven present, all of whom stand.
The presence or not of the Pope in the painting could be seen as controversial. In July 1809 Pius had been brutally taken from Rome by the French occupation forces, because he had opposed Napoleon’s annexation of the Papal States. When Ingres planned his painting, the Pope was a prisoner in Fontainebleau. To represent this victim of Napoleonic aggression in a picture destined for a high official of the empire was to touch on a painfully sensitive issue.