Mercure, d'après la fresque de Raphaël à la Farnésine

This copy of Mercury after Raphael's Farnesina fresco from 1809 at the Beaux-Arts de Paris reflects Ingres's systematic study of Raphael's works during his Rome years. Copying the master was both a training exercise and an act of devotion for the artist who considered Raphael the ultimate model of artistic perfection. Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, David's greatest pupil and the defender of the classical French tradition against the Romantic movement, dominated French painting through the middle decades of the nineteenth century from his position at the head of the Académie des Beaux-Arts and the École des Beaux-Arts. His doctrine of the primacy of line over color — inherited from David but pursued with a fanatical intensity David himself had not required — defined the terms of the great debate between Classicism (Ingres) and Romanticism (Delacroix) that structured French cultural life from the 1820s to the 1860s. His influence on subsequent French painting — including Degas, Renoir, and ultimately Picasso — was foundational.

The copy demonstrates Ingres's careful study of Raphael's fresco technique. His translation of the figure to oil shows precision in reproducing the master's forms and proportions.