Profile of Raphael, Hands of Raphael, Racine and Poussin, studies for The Apotheosis of Homer

This oil sketch by Ingres, dating to 1837, groups profile studies of Raphael and Poussin with hands and figures prepared for his vast Apotheosis of Homer ceiling (1827, Louvre) and related compositions. Ingres's lifelong veneration of Raphael bordered on the devotional; he considered the Urbino master the supreme exemplar of beauty in painting, and returned obsessively to his image. This panel — later in Degas's collection — reveals the preparatory process behind Ingres's neoclassical tableaux: individual studies worked and reworked, then assembled into monumental compositions articulating his hierarchy of artistic genius.

The small panel technique is crisp and precise — Ingres's characteristic line governs even these informal studies. The profile of Raphael is rendered with the same idealized clarity as his formal portraits. Warm flesh tones against a neutral ground allow each figure study to read independently.