Study for the Drapery of Molière in the "Apotheosis of Homer"
Medium
Black chalk with stumping
Dimensions
11 15/16 x 9 13/16 in. (30.3 x 24.9 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1937
Accession Number
37.165.100
Art Historical Context
This delicate drawing by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres a master of Neoclassicism, is a preparatory study for the drapery adorning the figure of Molière in his fresco *Apotheosis of Homer*1827). Created around the time of that ambitious project—commissioned for a Paris competition celebrating Homer as the pinnacle of Western—Ingres meticulously planned fold and shadow. The study exemplifies his devotion to classical ideals of harmony, precision, and idealized form, contrasting the emotional exuberance of Romanticism. Executed in black chalk with stumping—a technique where a soft tool blends to...
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...