Young Ingres at the Musée d'Orléans

Published on 24 November 2021, by Christophe Averty

How can the beauty of a figure be captured and expressed? How can tradition be melded with inventiveness? These questions, which bedeviled Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres throughout his formative years, imbue the 70 drawings, prints and paintings presented chronologically in the Orléans museum.

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867), Jean-Charles Auguste Simon, 1806, black... Young Ingres at the Musée d'Orléans

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867), Jean-Charles Auguste Simon, 1806, black chalk and shading with white highlights on cream wove paper, 42.2 x 37.7 cm/16.6 x 14.8 in. Orléans, Musée des Beaux-arts.
© Orléans, Musée des Beaux-arts

Forty prints and autograph drawings (six privately owned and two never seen at auction) follow the development of his style from his studies in Montauban and Toulouse to his departure from Paris for the Académie de France in Rome in 1806. "The exhibition shows how far his artistic output was shaped…

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