Jean Auguste Ingres

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres – Extensive support from his artistically active father

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres was born on 29 August 1780 in Montauban. His father, multi-talented as architect, sculptor, painter and stuccoer, took the eldest of his seven children with him to jobs from early on. Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres thus learnt the foundation of arts and crafts which he developed from the age of 11 while studying at the Academy in Toulouse. Using the portraits of Charles-Nicolas Cochin, he studied the problematic relationship between image and reality. His father, to whom Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres felt a close bond throughout his life and whose influence and skill he virtually glorified, provided music lessons alongside his extensive training in drawing. After winning a number of academic prizes, Ingres ventured to Paris – an important step for the furtherment of his career. At the Louvre he received lessons from Jacques-Louis David, who was considered a master of classicism and a sought-after teacher. 

Celebrated and vilified, but always with his own style

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres proved up to the challenges of his new environment, impressed teachers and fellow students, and won the coveted Rome scholarship when he entered the Prix de Rome der Ècole des Beax-Arts in 1801. Just two years later, Ingres received his first government contract, a painting of the French Emperor Napoleon for the city of Liège. Following the death of his father he travelled with his young wife Madeleine to Naples where he painted Napoleon’s sister, Caroline Murat. For the French Embassy in Rome, Ingres produced two magnificent history paintings with scenes from the Gospel of Matthew and Orlando Furioso. Despite these successes, the artist regularly had to contend with hostility from critics because his pictures often ran counter to the conventions of the time. In Florence, Ingres visited his childhood friend Lorenzo Bartolino and studied the works in the Uffizi and Palazzo Pitti. 

Teaching positions in Rome and Paris, triumph at the World’s Fair

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres largely earned a living with his celebrated portraits but saw himself primarily as a history painter. After achieving great success with his painting The Vow of Louis XIII and being awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honour by King Charles X, he took up teaching posts in Rome and Paris. In 1851, Ingres was appointed rector of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the life salary relieving him of all economic worries. The following year he married his second wife, Delphine Ramel, 30 years his junior. A triumphant high point and conclusion to his illustrious career was the retrospective of 69 of his works at the World’s Fair in Paris in 1855 – an honour he had to share, however, with his greatest adversary, the Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix. 

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres died in Paris on 14 January 1867.