First Thought of the Vow of Louis XIII

This First Thought of the Vow of Louis XIII from 1821 at the Musee Ingres documents the genesis of the large altarpiece that would bring Ingres triumph at the 1824 Salon. The finished painting, combining Raphaelesque Marian beauty with French monarchical piety, established Ingres as the champion of classical tradition. 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 preparatory sketch reveals the compositional structure of the final altarpiece. Ingres's precise draftsmanship establishes the major elements with characteristic clarity.