Comtesse Charles d’Agoult (born Marie de Flavigny) and Her Daughter Claire d’Agoult
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (French, 1780–1867)
1849
- Medium
- Graphite, heightened with white opaque watercolor, with touches of yellow watercolor, on off-white wove paper, lined to secondary wove paper
- Classification
- Drawing and Watercolor
- Dimensions
- Primary support: 48.5 × 39.9 cm (19 1/8 × 15 3/4 in.); Secondary support: 49.9 × 41.5 cm (19 11/16 × 16 3/8 in.)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- Gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
One of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s largest and most ambitious portrait drawings, this work depicts the important Parisian society hostess, writer, and critic the Comtesse Marie d’Agoult and her daughter Claire.
Ingres typically produced his portrait drawings without preparation and in a single sitting. This work, in contrast, required at least two sittings and three preparatory studies. The drawing is notable for its evocation of the richly furnished interior of d’Agoult’s home. The artist selectively applied yellow watercolor to enhance objects and added white heightening to the sitters’ dresses to suggest the sheen of silk.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
