
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY, "Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection", 2017. Exh. cat., no. 204, repr.
The Thaw collection of master drawings : acquisitions since 2002. New York : Morgan Library & Museum, 2009, no. 18, repr.
By the 1820s, Ingres's exasperation with drawn portraits led him to complain: "I don't want to do [portraits] any more. ... It's a considerable waste of time, fruitless effort, given the dryness of the subject matter." His portraits from this period thus tend to feature friends and intimates. Appointed secretary-general of the Seine in 1826, Defresne also owned at least two paintings by the artist. Adolphe-Marcellin was thirty-two years old when he commissioned this portrait of himself in 1825. That summer, he married the fifteen-year-old Sophie Leroy; the artist depicted the new Madame Defresne the following year. -- Exhibition Label, from "Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection"
Thaw, Eugene Victor, former owner.
Thaw, Clare, former owner.