Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Sale, Chevalier Alfred de Knyff, January 23-27, 1865
Sale, M.X., Marseilles, April 30, 1874, lot 41
Sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris, June 3, 1909, lot 1 (acquired by Comte de Boisgelin)
Private Collection, England, 1956
Stanley Moss & Co., New York, circa 1967

Unpublished letter from Ingres to Calamatta, Meung-sur-Loire, September 30th 1860, ''I am working on a small Virgin with the Host with darling angels'', Momméja, La Collection Ingres, p. 117, note 1
Georges Wildenstein, Ingres, London, Phaidon Press, 1956, no. 296, pp. 225-226, illustrated
Ettore Camesasca, L’opera completa di Ingres, Milan, Rizzoli, 1968, no. 131f, p. 108, illustrated
Daniel Ternois, Ingres, Milan, Ferdinand Nathan, 1980, no. 253, p. 183
Patricia Condon, In Pursuit of Perfection: The Art of J.-A.-D. Ingres, J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY, 1983, p. 245
Georges Vigne, Ingres, New York: Abbeville Press, 1995, p. 339
Valerie Bajou, Monsieur Ingres, Paris: Adam Biro, 1999, p. 271

Ingres devoted his artistic life to the discovery of an archetype, the most perfect evocation of a subject. The customary training method for post-Revolutionary French artists enrolled in the Academy involved first studying, sketching and lastly painting a finished composition. Teachers then encouraged students to develop an extensive cache of ''mastered'' subjects by continuously representing an array of historical narratives, each designed to expose artists to a novel subject and expand their repertoire. Though schooled in this tradition, and eventually a professor himself, Ingres broke ties with the Salon after the 1834 ridicule and censure of his St. Symphorien; this fissure enabled Ingres to practice a preferred method involving the careful reworking of several poignant subjects. His quest for the ultimate harmony of balance, color, and emotional strength uniquely resulted in selectively filtered, exceptionally improved compositions near the end of each series; this Virgin with the Host, the second to last in a series of nine, offers a rare glimpse into Ingres’ view of perfection.

The quest to portray the Virgin Mary’s most ideal form is synonymous with the history of Western art. From early Medieval sculpture, to Renaissance pioneers like Giotto and Cimabue, to Northern masters like Roger van der Weyden, through the Baroque and throughout the 18th century, a successful depiction of the Virgin was viewed a great challenge and an artist’s skill was often judged by his ability to represent her divine visage. When Ingres began his Virgin series, he faced an extensive and intimidating tradition of iconic images of the Madonna. Ingres completed his training at the Academy by 1810, having extensively worked through the ‘generative’ and ‘executive’ phases of Academic development. In 1814, his painting method secure, he wrote the following, ‘’When you really know your business and are ready to imitate nature, the longest thing for a good painter is to think through your painting, to have it, so to speak, all in your head, and then to get it done hot, all in one stroke. Then, I think, everything will seem to be felt as a whole, and there’s real mastery. And that’s what should make you dream, night and day, of your art’’ (Condon, p. 48).

In 1813, the mayor of Montauban commissioned Ingres to paint a large canvas for the town cathedral depicting Louis XIII placing the royalty of France in the hands of the Virgin at the moment of her Assumption. After much disagreement and discussion, Ingres painted the Vow of Louis XIII and exhibited the finished composition in the Salon of 1824 (fig. 1). Ingres was working in Florence when he painted the Vow of Louis XIII and the picture reveals his passion for the compositions of Raphael. Ingres’ esteem for the Renaissance master affected his palette, the pose and corporeality of his figures, and even his subject matter, as seen in one of the artist’s first fully explored series featuring Rapahel at his easel holding his beloved Fornarina. Ingres included Raphael’s Madonna della Sedia in the studio background for one work in the series, a painting Ingres especially admired, which had a strong influence on his Virgin series.

Ingres' notebooks IX and X mention copies he made after Raphael's Virgin of the Impannata and Virgin of the Foligno; he was also clearly familiar with Raphael's The Madonna of the Candelabra (fig. 2). His putti, the green curtain, the candelabra and the downward gaze of the veiled Virgin would be edited and reworked by Ingres in his Virgin with the Host. In 1841, while serving as the Director of the French Academy in Rome, Ingres completed his first Virgin with Host for Alexandre II, the future Czar of Russia (fig. 3).  While Raphael's Madonna of the Candelabra is the obvious prototype for Ingres' painting, the Virgin with the Host reveals his trademark touches, especially his ability to create an elegant, graceful line. Ingres’ fame as a draftsman would become something of a burden as critics pushed him into a camp of linear artists polarized from the group of artists labeled as colorists. Though the belief that an artist is either skilled with line or with color is somewhat absurd, the issue was greatly debated throughout the Academy and became another point of frustration for Ingres with the Salon officials. Ingres’ skill for rendering luscious and refined color becomes evident through the progression of the Virgin series.

Ingres painted this Virgin with the Host in 1860; the work represents a culmination of revisions involving the curtains, the angels holding them open, the putti examining the candelabra, and countenance of the Virgin. Ingres intensely reworked the color selection for each painting in the series, and here we find the saturated red, blue, and green primary colors beautifully balanced by the light of the Host. The serene downward glance of the Virgin has become both loving and reverent; her solemnity contrasts with the playful putti who curiously handle the devotional objects.

Ingres most likely painted the work for his beloved second wife, who greatly admired his religious compositions and encouraged the artist in his quest for more personal, poignant paintings. The Virgin with the Host is a masterful marriage of Renaissance influence with 19th century innovation as well as an emblem of artistic triumph; it is the creation of a painter who flaunted fashionable method to follow his belief that continual reworking combined with selective invention was the true path to perfection.