Comtesse Charles d'Agault née Marie de Flavigny

Kathleen Gilje is an American-born artist and art conservator who reinterprets the canon of Western Art History through a contemporary feminist lens. She honed her ability to work in a wide range of styles and artistic "hands" during her tenure as a conservator at the Cappo di Monte Museum in Naples, where she restored works by the likes of Caravaggio and El Greco. Titling many of her paintings and drawings as "restorations" of the original works they reference, Gilje has perfected the art of subtle (and occasionally not-so-subtle) artistic intervention. Based on the Ingres drawing of the same name, in this composition, Gilje masterfully copies Ingres' precisely delineated portrait of a woman and her daughter with a twist. Behind the two sitters, she inserts a self-portrait by renowned photographer Cindy Sherman, in which Sherman styles herself in the manner of a Neoclassical painting. Through this insertion, Gilje reflects on portraiture's capacity to construct identity, as envisioned through the distinct yet intersecting perspectives of Ingres, Sherman, and Gilje herself. This is the first work by Gilje to enter the Morgan's collection where it bolsters our growing roster of contemporary interventions into the canon of art history.