100 - Jean-Auguste Dominique INGRES (Montauban 1780 – Paris 1867)

Jean-Auguste Dominique INGRES (Montauban 1780 – Paris 1867) Portrait of the sculptor Paul Lemoyne Black chalk 20.5 x 15 cm Signed and inscribed lower right: Ingres a / son ami Lemoyne Provenance: Pierre and Marthe de Gaudemaris Collection, Château de Massillan. Our drawing is the third known portrait of the sculptor Lemoyne by Ingres. It was drawn in Rome in 1810–1811, likely around the same time as the oil painting created upon the young artist’s arrival in the Eternal City. The painting is now in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City (see the exhibition catalog *Portraits by Ingres: Image of an Epoch*, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, no. 29, reproduced), Ingres and Lemoyne must have shared a very strong bond of friendship, as the painter gave this painting to the model as a gift with the wish that he never part with it. The sale of the work to the painter Jean Gigoux a few years later angered him. Around the same time, Ingres painted a portrait of the architect Dédéban (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Besançon); the previous year, he had painted the famous portrait of Marius Granet (Musée Marius Granet – Aix-en-Provence). In 1810, Ingres chose to remain in Rome at the end of his stay at the Villa Medici, discouraged by the lack of understanding from Parisian critics. In 1841, Ingres drew a pencil portrait of Lemoyne, still in Rome, now in the Grobet-Labadié Museum in Marseille (see the work cited above, reproduced in fig. 116). This portrait is also dedicated to his friend Lemoyne. Ingres was then nearing the end of his second stay in Rome, this time as director of the French Academy in Rome (1835–1841). During those years, he painted relatively little, devoting himself to his boarders as well as to the renovation of the Medici Villa and gardens. Paul Lemoyne, known as Lemoyne Saint Paul (Paris 1784–Rome 1873), settled permanently in Rome in 1810. The son of a goldsmith, he first trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He made his debut at the 1814 Salon and won a gold medal at the 1817 Salon. Having failed to win the Prix de Rome, Lemoyne decided to travel to Rome at his own expense, strongly encouraged by Quatremère de Quincy, who recommended him to Canova. He became one of the city’s leading French sculptors, frequently supported by official commissions from Paris, yet also fully accepted by Italian artists. Chateaubriand, then ambassador, commissioned him in 1831 to create a monument to Poussin (Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina). Between 1835 and 1838, he created the monument dedicated to another Frenchman living in Rome, Claude Lorrain, in the Church of Saint Louis des Français. In the same church, he designed the tombs of Guérin and then Boguet, in 1833 and 1839. He was appointed professor of sculpture at the Accademia di San Luca. Expert: René MILLET, certified expert with the Paris Court of Appeal Expert: René MILLET