''Portrait of Madame Aymon, La Belle Zélie'' is an 1806 oil on canvas painting by the French artist

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres ( , ; 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassical painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic orthodoxy against the ...

. The painting is one of Ingres' early painted portraits, completed just before his first stay in Rome. It first came to public notice during an 1867 Ingres exhibition in Paris, and was acquired by the

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen is an art museum in Rouen, in Normandy in north-western France. It was established by Napoléon Bonaparte in 1801, and is housed in a building designed by and built between 1877 and 1888. Its collections include ...

in 1870. Although the work is signed and dated on the lower left of the canvas,Conisbee, 60 the identity of the sitter is uncertain. The painting was untitled when it entered the collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, shortly beforehand she was tentatively identified as a Madame Aymon (disputed by the Beaux-Arts de Rouen) with the portrait given the nickname of ''La belle Zélie'', a reference to a popular song in the 1870s, mentioned because of the "subtle hint of vulgarity" apparent in the painting.La Belle Zélie
.

. Retrieved 22 September 2017 If the sitter is a Madame Aymon, Ingres may also have portrayed her husband, though no such work is known.Wildenstein, 43 The sitter is shown in three-quarters view, placed against a backdrop of open sky with some clouds. The central canvas is dominated by red, black and brown colours. As with many of Ingres' female portraits, the sitter is given Greek or

Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual a ...

esque features. "Sensuous and sleepy",Friedlaender, 90 she bears facial resemblance to figures in Ingres' later "

Odalisque An odalisque (, tr, odalık) was a chambermaid or a female attendant in a Turkish seraglio, particularly the court ladies in the household of the Ottoman sultan. In western usage, the term came to mean the harem concubine, and refers to the ...

" paintings of

harem Harem ( Persian: حرمسرا ''haramsarā'', ar, حَرِيمٌ ''ḥarīm'', "a sacred inviolable place; harem; female members of the family") refers to domestic spaces that are reserved for the women of the house in a Muslim family. A har ...

women. She has an expressive, oval face and almond eyes. Her eyes are slightly parted, her cheeks flushed. The woman's black hair falls over her forehead in three thick curls.Friedlaender, 75 She wears long diamond earrings on her unusually elongated ear, and a pearl necklace on her unnaturally long, "swan like" neck.Conisbee, 61Rosenblum, 175 Her silk

bodice A bodice () is an article of clothing traditionally for women and girls, covering the torso from the neck to the waist. The term typically refers to a specific type of upper garment common in Europe during the 16th to the 18th century, or to the ...

is brown and low-cut with a wide neckline, worn over a crimson shawl. The painting is full of accentuating curves; from the oval cut of the canvas, to the round hair curls, the shape of her face and the shape of her necklace.

References

Sources

*Conisbee, Philip. ''Portraits by Ingres: Image of an Epoch''. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999. *Friedlaender, Walter F. ''David to Delacroix''. MA: Harvard University Press, 1974. * Rosenblum, Robert. ''Ingres''. New York: New York University, 1956 *Wildenstein, Georges. "The Paintings of J. A. D. Ingres". London:n Phaidon Press, 1954

External links

At the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen
{{DEFAULTSORT:Belle Zelie Portraits by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Portraits of women 1806 paintings

See also

References

Sources

External links