La Dormeuse de Naples

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres painted La Dormeuse de Naples (The Sleeping Woman of Naples) in 1809, during his years in Rome as a pensionnaire at the French Academy. The painting, now lost and known only through descriptions and a small sketch, depicted a sleeping female nude and was painted for Joachim Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law and King of Naples. Ingres was developing his distinctive approach to the nude during this period, combining rigorous classical draftsmanship with a sensuality that pushed the boundaries of Neoclassical decorum and anticipated the more overtly erotic nudes of his later career.

Based on surviving preparatory studies, Ingres employed his characteristic sinuous line to define the contours of the sleeping figure, creating the elongated, boneless elegance that would become his signature treatment of the female body. His meticulous surface finish and cool, porcelain-like rendering of flesh set his nudes apart from the warmer, more painterly approach of his Romantic rivals.