Choice Review
This complete catalogue of Ingres's 42 oil portraits and 123 drawing and studies accompanies London's National Gallery, Washington's National Gallery of Art, and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art 1999-2000 exhibitions. Nearly all the paintings were shown at each venue (the selection of drawings varied); every work is illustrated and discussed in detail, artistically and historically. Comments on the drawings are by the great authority Hans Naef; those on the paintings are by such scholars as Philip Conisbee, Christopher Riopelle, Andrew Carrington Shelton, and Gary Tinterow, who discuss Ingres's activity in Montauban, Toulouse, and Paris, 1780-1806; Rome, 1806-20; Florence, 1820-24; Paris, 1824-34; Rome, 1835-41; and Paris, 1841-67. These essays and illustrations of other portraits usually in color (not in the exhibition), combined with the catalog entries, result in almost complete coverage of Ingres's work in portraiture. Additional essays discuss Ingres's portraits and their muses by Robert Rosenblum; the critical reception of his portraits, 1802-55, by Andrew Shelton; and Ingres and his collaborators, by Georges Vigne. Useful chronology by Rebecca A. Rabinow; thorough bibliography and index. It is hard to imagine how this outstanding work could be better--it is the most up-to-date and complete study of Ingres's brilliant work in portraiture. Unreservedly recommended. General readers; upper-division undergraduate and graduate students. T. J. McCormick; Wheaton College (MA)