Currently not on view
The so-called "Bacchus Richelieu",
1793
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1780–1867; born Montauban, France; died Paris; active Rome, Florence, and Paris
1996-307
Ingres’s early academic training in Toulouse is reflected in this finished drawing after a plaster cast, or dessin de bosse—the prerequisite stage in the study of the human figure, before the académie, or drawing from the live model. The bust derives from a full-length ancient Roman statue commonly called the "Bacchus Richelieu" after its celebrated seventeenth-century owner, the Cardinal Richelieu. The statue was seized from Richelieu’s descendants during the French Revolution and entered the collection of the Musée du Louvre by 1794, when the first casts were produced. Ingres demonstrated not only exceptional skill but also originality in this standard academic exercise in three-dimensional modeling, creating an imaginative illusionistic effect that endows the plaster surface with the sheen and luster of marble. The premature date of 1793 was probably inscribed on the sheet by the artist in his later years.
Information
Title
The so-called "Bacchus Richelieu"
Dates
1793
Medium
Charcoal with stumping slightly accented with black chalk
Dimensions
sight: 70 × 53 cm (27 9/16 × 20 7/8 in.)
frame: 87 × 68.5 × 6 cm (34 1/4 × 26 15/16 × 2 3/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of The Forbes Magazine Collection: Steve Forbes, Class of 1970, and Christopher Forbes, Class of 1972
Object Number
1996-307
Signatures
Signed and dated in black chalk, upper right: JD Ingres | 1793
Inscription
in brown ink, center right: Ve [veuve] Ingres [in Mme. Ingres' hand]
Culture
Type
Materials
Techniques
Subject
Gift of the artist to his second wife Delphine; her gift to Léon Bonnal, January 1887; his granddaughter, Mme. Albert Bonnat-Monfleur; Paul Bianchini, New York, November 1969 (sold Christie’s, London, 23 June 1970, no. 148, illus., sold for $6,550) (See reference Bib. 4834); Forbes Magazine Collection, New York.;
- Catalogue of fine old masters drawings: which will be sold at auction by Christie, Manson & Woods ... London ... June, 23, 1970, (London: Christie, Manson & Woods, 1970)., no. 148 (illus.)
- Gerald Schurr, "Collecting", Réalités no. 254 (Jan., 1972)., p. 9 (illus.)
- Phyllis Hattis, Ingres' sculptural style: a group of unknown drawings, (Cambridge, MA: Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, 1973). , no. 6 (illus.)
- Princeton alumni collections: works on paper, (Princeton, NJ: Published by the Art Museum, Princeton University, in association with Princeton University Press, 1981)., p. 98; p. 99 (illus.)
- Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann and Carolyn Logan, Creative copies: interpretative drawings from Michelangelo to Picasso: the Drawing Center ..., New York, 9 April-23 July 1988, (New York: The Drawing Center, 1988). , no. 50 (illus.)
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1996," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 56, no. 1/2 (1997): p. 75-115., p. 107
