- Gallery Text
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Ingres made these studies in the final stage of preparation for his monumental altarpiece for the cathedral of Autun, a commission he took ten years to complete. The painting features the imminent martyrdom of Saint Symphorien, a Christian who was executed in the second century for refusing to worship the Roman gods.
Ingres made hundreds of drawings for the project, and the squaring in graphite, visible throughout the composition, reveals his process of transferring the figures from individual drawings to the canvas. It has been argued that these kinds of studies, which abandon spatial rationality and were never exhibited during the artist’s lifetime, were made primarily as an exploration of color relationships between figures. Nevertheless, Ingres continued to rework the figures’ contours and poses as well, in his characteristic practice of constant revision.
- Identification and Creation
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- Object Number
- 1943.245
- People
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Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, French (Montauban 1780 - 1867 Paris)
- Title
- Studies for "The Martyrdom of Saint Symphorien" (Saint, Mother, and Proconsul)
- Classification
- Paintings
- Work Type
- painting
- Date
- 1833
- Culture
- French
- Persistent Link
- https://hvrd.art/o/229866
- Location
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Level 2, Room 2200, European and American Art, 17th–19th century, The Emergence of Romanticism in Early Nineteenth-Century France
View this object's location on our interactive map - Physical Descriptions
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- Medium
- Oil over graphite and red chalk (stylus transfer), squared in graphite, on paper mounted on canvas, backed by a wood panel
- Dimensions
- sight: 60 x 47.6 cm (23 5/8 x 18 3/4 in.)
framed: 81.8 x 69.2 cm (32 3/16 x 27 1/4 in.) - Inscriptions and Marks
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- Signed: l.r.: Ingres
- Provenance
- Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, (1833-1866) sold; to Etienne-François Haro, Paris (until 1867); [Ingres sale, Hôtel Drouot, May 6-7, 1867 no. 7]; to Eugène Lecompte, Paris (1867-1906); [his sale, Hôtel Drouot, June 11-13, 1906, no. 49] . Comtesse de Behague, Paris (1911-1934) sold; [through Martin Birnbaum]; to Grenville L. Winthrop, New York, NY, bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1943.
Notes: Lecomte paid Fr 7,050 for this canvas in the Ingres sale
The Comtesse de Behague was also known as the Comtesse de Bearn (before her divorce).
Winthrop paid Fr 66,000 ($4400)
- Acquisition and Rights
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- Credit Line
- Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
- Accession Year
- 1943
- Object Number
- 1943.245
- Division
- European and American Art
- Contact
- am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
- THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.
- The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.
- Publication History
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"Mouvement des Arts et de la Curiosité. Tableaux et Dessins d'Ingres", La Chronique des Arts et de la Curiosité (May 5 and 12, 1867), vol. V, p. 145, no. 7
Catalogue des tableaux, études peintes, dessins et croquis de J.A.D. Ingres exposé dans les galeries de l'Ecole impériale des Beaux-Arts, exh. cat., Ad. Laine et J. Havard (Paris, France, 1867), no. 12
Henri, Vicomte Delaborde, Ingres, sa vie, ses travaux, sa doctrine, d'apres les notices manuscrites et les lettres du maitre, H. Plon (Paris, France, 1870), p. 184, under no. 16
Téodor de Wyzewa, L'Oeuvre Peint de Jean-Dominique Ingres, Frédéric Gittler (Paris, France, 1907), pl. XXVII, p. iv, no. 27
Henry Lapauze, Ingres, sa vie & son oeuvre, G. Petit (Paris, France, 1911), pp. 303, 552
Chinese Sculpture, Bronzes, Jades, Paintings and Drawings, Egyptian and Persian sculpture, Pre-Columbian art; selected from the collection of Grenville Lindall Winthrop, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1943), p. 3
Agnes Mongan, "Drawings by Ingres in the Winthrop Collection", Gazette des Beaux-Arts (July-December 1944), ser. 6, 26, p. 388-412 n. 1
Georges Wildenstein, Ingres, Phaidon Press (London, England, 1954), pl. 74, no. 213
Pontus Grate, Deux critiques d'art de l'epoque Romantique: Gustave Planche et Theophile Thore, Almqvist & Wiksell (Stockholm, Sweden, 1959), p. 147
Martin Birnbaum, The Last Romantic (New York, NY, 1960), p. 188, no. 1
Ingres, exh. cat., Réunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, France, 1967), under no. 161, p. 228
Ingres: Centennial Exhibition, 1867-1967. Drawings, Watercolors and Oil Sketches from American Collections, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1967), under no. 60
Valentina N. Berezina, Zhan Ogrust Dominik Engr, Sovestkii khudozhnik (Leningrad, 1967), no. 52
Emilio Radius and Ettore Camesasca, L'opera completa di Ingres, Rizzoli (Milan, Italy, 1968), p. 107, no. 127d
Daniel Ternois and Ettore Camesasca, Tout l'oeuvre peint d'Ingres (Paris, France, 1971), p. 107, no. 128d
Daniel Ternois, Ingres, Editions Nathan (Paris, France, 1980), no. 227, repr. p. 182
Gaetan Picon, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Quai des Celestins, 4 (New York, NY, 1980), repr. in b/w p. 64
Marjorie B. Cohn and Susan L. Siegfried, Works by J. A. D. Ingres in the Collection of the Fogg Art Museum, Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1980), no. 36, p. 108, repr. b/w p. 110, in color p. 9
25 Great Masters of Modern Art: Ingres, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan, 1981), repr. in color no. 63
Hilton Brown, "Academic Art Education and Studio Practices", American Artist (February 1985), ill. p. 52
Kristin A. Mortimer and William G. Klingelhofer, Harvard University Art Museums: A Guide to the Collections, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press (Cambridge and New York, 1986), no. 199, p. 175, repr. in b/w
Edgar Peters Bowron, European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum: A Summary Catalogue including Paintings in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 67, color plate; pp. 112, 226, repr. b/w cat. no. 276
Annalisa Zanni, Ingres: catalogo completo dei dipinti, Cantini Editore (Florence, Italy, 1990), p. 108, under no. 85
[Eugéne-Emmanuel Pineu-Duval] Amaury-Duval, L'Atelier d'Ingres: Edition critique de l'ouvrage publié à Paris en 1878, ed. Daniel Ternois, Arthena (Paris, France, 1993), repr. in color pl. 210, p. 246
Barbara Maria Stafford, Artful Science: Enlightenment, Entertainment,and the Eclipse of Visual Education, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA, 1994), repr. in b/w p. 214, fig. 151
[Unidentified article], The Harvard Review of Philosophy (Spring 1995), vol. V, repr. in color on cover
Georges Vigne, Dessins d'Ingres: Catalogue raisonné des dessins du musée de Montauban, Gallimard/Reunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, France, 1995), pp. 106 above no. 518, 114 under no. 568
Georges Vigne, Ingres, Citadelles & Mazenod and Abbeville Press (Paris, France; New York, NY, 1995), pp. 189, 192, repr. as fig. 158
Valérie Bajou, Monsieur Ingres, Editions Adam Biro (Paris, France, 1999), pp. 237-239, repr. in color fig. 165
Gary Tinterow and Philip Conisbee, Portraits by Ingres: Image of an Epoch, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY, 1999), pp. 275, 282, 284, 286-7
Andrew Carrington Shelton, "Art, Politics, and the Politics of Art: Ingres's Saint Symphorien at the 1834 Salon", The Art Bulletin (December 2001), vol. LXXXIII no. 4, pp. 711-739, p. 715, repr. as fig. 4
Daniel Ternois, Lettres d’Ingres à Marcotte d’Argenteuil: dictionnaire, Librairie des Arts et Métiers-Ed. Jacques Laget (Nogent-le-Roi, France, 2001), p. 149 n. 25
Stephan Wolohojian, ed., A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press (U.S.) (New York, 2003), no. 70, pp. 183-187, repr. in color
Stephan Wolohojian, Ingres, Burne-Jones, Whistler, Renoir... La Collection Grenville L. Winthrop, exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and Réunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, France, 2003), no. 70, pp. 191-195, repr. in color
"The Object of Art Museums", Whose Muse? Art Museums and the Public Trust, ed. James Cuno, Princeton University Press/Harvard University Art Museums (Princeton, NJ / Cambridge, MA, 2004), pp. 49-75, p. 64, repr. as fig. 7
Vincent Pomarède, Stéphane Guégan, Louis-Antoine Prat, and Eric Bertin, Ingres 1780-1867, exh. cat., Editions Gallimard (Paris, France, 2006), pp. 241-242, repr. as ill. 174
Susan L. Siegfried, Ingres: Painting Reimagined, Yale University Press (U.S.) (New Haven, 2009), p. 361, repr. in b/w p. 362 as fig. 217
Louis-Antoine Prat, Le dessin français au XIXe siècle, Somogy Éditions d'Art (Paris, 2011), p. 179
- Exhibition History
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Tableaux, etudes peintes, dessins et croquis de J.-A.-D. Ingres peintre d'histoire, sénateur, membre de l'Institut, École Impériale des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 04/10/1867 - 12/31/1867
Chinese sculpture, bronzes, jades, paintings and drawings, Egyptian and Persian sculpture, Pre-Columbian art : selected from the collection of Grenville Lindall Winthrop, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 10/01/1943 - 02/28/1944
Master Paintings from the Fogg Collection, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/13/1977 - 08/31/1977
Works by J.-A.-D. Ingres in the Collection of the Fogg Art Museum, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 10/17/1980 - 12/07/1980
Masterpieces of European Art, Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, 06/22/1985 - 09/15/1985
A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, Lyon, 03/15/2003 - 05/26/2003; National Gallery, London, 06/25/2003 - 09/14/2003; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 10/23/2003 - 01/25/2004
For Students of Art and Lovers of Beauty: Highlights from the Collection of Grenville L. Winthrop, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/16/2004
HAA 10 Survey Course (S421): The Western Tradition: Art Since the Renaissance (Fall 08 Rotation 2), Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 10/23/2008 - 11/16/2008
HAA 10 Survey Course (S421): The Western Tradition: Art Since the Renaissance (Fall 09 Rotation 2), Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 10/16/2009 - 11/08/2009
32Q: 2200 19th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050
- Subjects and Contexts
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Google Art Project
- Related Works
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This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu