Portrait of Madame Thiers

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was one of the most important artists in early nineteenth-century France. In his youth, he worked in the studio of Jacques-Louis David and absorbed the principles of classical composition. He worked in both Paris and Rome, creating numerous history paintings as well as portraits. Known for his meticulous, perfectionist practice, Ingres produced a vast number of paintings and drawings of exceptionally high quality and is seen as the last true exponent of the French classical tradition.

This elegant portrait is of the former Elise Dosne (1818-1880), the fifteen-year-old bride of Louis-Adolphe Thiers (1797- 1877). Distressed by the unfavorable public reception of his painting The Martyrdom of Saint Symphorian during its exhibition at the 1834 Salon, Ingres sought to leave Paris. When Thiers, recently named Minister of the Interior of France, announced a search for a replacement for the director of the French Academy in Rome, Ingres immediately sought the post and was appointed in early July of 1834. It is not clear whether Ingres's portrait of Madame Thiers was drawn in supplication or in gratitude for the position, but it was certainly done between April 1834, when Thiers was named Minister, and December of that year, when Ingres left for Rome. Madame Thiers's mother was assumed by contemporaries to have been Thiers's mistress, and it is known from numerous accounts that the union between Elise and the much older Thiers was no marriage of love; those who knew her described Elise as silent and sullen. The sheen of her smooth hair is here marvelously rendered, as befits her beauty, but the blank look of her eyes tends to support the contemporary reports of her demeanor.