Portrait de Madame de Staël

This Portrait of Madame de Stael from 1800 at the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull depicts the celebrated writer and intellectual who opposed Napoleon. Painted when Ingres was just twenty, this early portrait already shows his ability to capture the intelligence and force of personality of his sitters. Ingres built his oil surfaces through meticulous underdrawing in graphite, then applied smooth, controlled layers that eliminated all visible brushwork—a deliberate rejection of the painterly...

The portrait presents the famous writer with Ingres's developing technique. The careful observation of the sitter's animated features anticipates the penetrating characterization of his mature portraits.