The completed likeness is nothing short of spectacular. Making her arms more slender in response to complaints they looked too plump in the standing version, Ingres presented Madame Moitessier in an opulent silk dress, bursting with bouquets of roses, rendered in colorful, meticulously precise detail. Her pose, inspired by that of a goddess in a Roman fresco, accentuated her voluptuousness and the elegance of her clothes, which represented the height of Second Empire fashion. When Ingres completed his last likeness, a self portrait, in 1865, the 85 year old artist could look back on a six decade career that spanned the closing years of the French Revolutionary era, the First Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Bourbon Restoration, and the Second Empire. Edited by the Met's Gary Tinterow and the National Gallery's Philip Conisbee, two of the exhibition curators, this will be the standard Ingres text for years to come.
Admission is free.