Edmond Cavé (1794–1852)
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
16 x 12 7/8 in. (40.6 x 32.7 cm)
Classification
Paintings
Department
European Paintings
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of Grace Rainey Rogers, 1943
Accession Number
43.85.2
Tags
Art Historical Context
In this intimate oil-on-canvas portrait from 1844, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres captures Cavé (1794–1852), a prominent French engraver and arts, with his signature neoclassical precision. Measuring just 16 x 12⅞ inches, the small scale suggests a personal commission, ideal for a private study or collection. Ingres, a leading figure of French Neoclassicism and rival to Romantic painters like Eugène Delacroix, renders Cavé's features with luminous skin tones and sharp contours, emphasizing clarity and idealized form over emotional exuberance. Ingres' technique shines in the meticulous renderin...
About the Artist
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres · 1780–1867
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was born on 29 August 1780 in Montauban, in the Tarn-et-Garonne region of southern France, into a family with deep artistic and musical connections — his father was a painter, sculptor, and musician. He showed exceptional promise from childhood, enrolling at the Académie Royale in Toulouse where he studied under the sculptor Jean-Pierre Vigan, the landscape painter Je...