Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–1867)
Portrait of a Boy, ca. 1793–94
Graphite, with red and green watercolor
Signed in graphite, Ingres.
Diameter: 4 3/4 inches (106 mm)
Purchased on the Sunny Crawford Von Bülow Fund 1978; 1982.2
Ingres was a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old student
at the Académie Royale in Toulouse when he
executed this roundel portrait in the manner of
eighteenth-century draftsman Charles-Nicolas
Cochin ii. With his entry to the Paris studio of
Jacques-Louis David in 1797, he would abandon
the fine modeling of graphite and sensitivity to
minute detail that characterize this drawing.
The boy wears an outlandish hat and jacket
resembling that of the Garde Nationale, but he was
not necessarily in the military. Before and during
the Revolution, civilians also wore uniforms.
Ingres added subtle passages of red watercolor to
the boy's left lapel and epaulette, in the folds of
his bonnet, and around the small ornament on its
crown, adding to the costume's precocious charm.
