Portrait of Baronne de Rothschild
Baronne de Rothschild is an 1848 portrait by the French Neoclassical artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. The sitter, Betty de Rothschild (1805–1886) had married her paternal uncle banker James Mayer de Rothschild and was one of the wealthiest women in Europe, and one of the foremost Parisian patrons of the arts. Her beauty and elegance were widely known and celebrated and inspired Heinrich Heine's poem The Angel. For her portrait, which is painted in oil on canvas, Ingres sought to infuse symbols of her material wealth with the dignity, grace and beauty of Renaissance art, especially that of Raphael, while at the same time adhering to the command of line as practised by Jan van Eyck. It is this combination which, according to art historians, places Ingres so far apart from his early modernist contemporaries.
Portrait of Baronne de Rothschild
1848
Betty de Rothschild (1805–1886)
141.9 cm × 101 cm (55.9 in × 40 in)
Betty de Rothschild's portrait is regarded as one of Ingres' most accomplished works and has been described as "perhaps the most sumptuous yet approachable image of mid-nineteenth-century opulence."[1]
Background[edit]
She first asked Ingres to paint her in 1841 when he was much sought after as a reluctant portraitist. His ambition lay in history painting which he believed was a higher form of art, while his living lay in commissions for the nobility. At this point he was financially comfortable and refused. After meeting her at a ball and finding her highly charming, he agreed to the commission. In a letter of 26 June 1842 to his friend Jean-Pierre-François Gilibert, Ingres wrote: "Tuesday, I have a definite sitting with Mme. de Rothschild, which came at the price of a dozen puerile and sincere letters. Long live portraits! may God damn them…!"[2]
The painting was not completed for another six years: there were false starts, and progress was interrupted while he took time to work on other portraits – including his portrait of the late Ferdinand Philippe Henri the Duc d'Orleans who was killed in a carriage accident in 1842.[3] Although Ingres had nearly finished Mme de Rothschild's head by February 1843, in June 1844 he made a new start.[4] As the first version of the portrait is not known to survive, it is probable that Ingres scraped it down and painted the new version on top of it.[2] He wrote in June 1847 that he had "barely finished Mme. de Rothschild, begun again better, and the portrait of Mme Moitessier."[2] The painting was completed in 1848.
History[edit]
The portrait was hung in Betty's salon until her death in 1886.[3] It was lent in 1867 to the posthumous Ingres exhibition in Paris, but has subsequently been exhibited publicly only twice. During the German occupation of France during World War II, it was confiscated from Mme de Rothschild's grandchildren as Jewish property.[9] In June 1946, it was returned to the family, and in that year, it was exhibited in Paris along with other repatriated works.[10] It was displayed in the centennial exhibition of Ingres' work in 1967–68 at the Petit Palais in Paris.[10]