Watermark: none.
Born in Sainte-Anne, Guadeloupe, in 1760, Guillaume Guillon-Lethière was the illegitimate child of a king's prosecutor and a freed Black slave. After displaying a youthful aptitude for draftsmanship, he moved to Paris at the age of fourteen and eventually established himself as a formidable history painter. After securing influential allies, such as Lucien Bonaparte, he was appointed director of the French Academy in Rome. Ingres was beginning his second year as a pensionnaire when Lethière arrived in October 1807. From 1808 to 1818, Ingres executed no fewer than ten portraits of Lethière, including this virtuoso sheet depicting the middle-aged director in all of his convivial pomposity.
Inscribed at lower right, "M. de Ingres / a Madlle Lescot".
A signature, now erased, still legible beneath the dedication, "Ingres rome 1815".
Lescot, Hortense, Mlle, former owner.
Fauchier-Magnan, Adrien, former owner.
Straus, Herbert, former owner.
Straus, Therese Kuhn, former owner.
Henry Jouin, Museé de portraits d'artistes, Paris, 1888, p. 119.
Ingres, Chambre syndicale de la Curiosité et des Beaux-Arts, paris, 1921, no. 64.
Georges Lecomte, "David et ses élèves," Arts, XII, no. 142, October 1913, p. 18, repr.
Morton D. Zabel, "Ingres in America," The Arts, XVI, February, 1930, repr. 379.
Master Drawings Selected from the Museums and Private Collections of America, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, 1935, no. 95, repr.
David and Ingres, Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts, and M. Knoedler & Co., New York, 1939-1940, no. 47.
Aline B. Loucheim, "The Great Tradition of French Drawings from Ingres to Picasso in American Collections," Art News Annual XLIII, no. 16, part II, 1944-1945, p. 129, 132 repr.
Agnes Mongan, Ingres: 24 Drawings, New York, 1947, no. 9, repr.
Hans Naef, "Ingres und die Familie Guillon Lethiére," du, December 1963, 65-78, fig. 1.
Ingres centennial Exhibition, catalogue by Agnes Mongan nd Hans Naef, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1967, no. 30, repr.
Norman Schlenoff, "Ingres Centennial at the Fogg Museum," Burlington Magazine, CIX, 1967, 379.
Ingres in Italia (1806-1824, 1835-1841), Accademia di Francia, Villa Medici, Rome, 1968, under no. 72.
Agnes Mongan, Ingres as a Great Portrait Draughtsman, Colloque Ingres 1967, Montaubam 1969, 141.
Ebria Feinblatt, "An Ingres Portrait for Los Angeles," The Connoisseur, 170, April 1969, 262, fig. 4.
Hans Naef, "Ingres und die Villa Medici," du, September 1972, 660, repr.
Charles Ryskamp, ed. Eighteenth Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1975-1977. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1978, p. 244, 269f, repr.
Hans Naef, Die Bildniszeichnungen von J.-A.-D. Ingres, Bern, 1977-1980, I, 408-410, IV, no. 135, repr.
Works by J.-A.-D. Ingres in the Collection of the Fogg Art Museum, catalogue by Marjorie B. Cohn and Susan L. Siegfried, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, 1980, under no. 7.
Cara D.Denison, and Helen B. Mules, with the assistance of Jane V. Shoaf. European Drawings, 1375-1825. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1981, no. 120, repr.
Cara D. Denison, French Drawings, 1550-1825. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1984, no. 100, repr.
Dan Hofstadter, "Sacred Monster," New Criterion, January 1987, p. 20.
In August Company : The Collections of the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1993, no. 29, p. 302, repr.
Cara D. Denison, French Master Drawings from the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1993, no. 102, repr.
Ingres Portrait Drawings: 44 Works, Dover Art Library, New York, 1993, repr. only, verso of titlepage.
From Leonardo to Pollock: Master Drawings from the Morgan Library. New York: Morgan Library, 2006, cat. no. 85, p. 178-179.