Bildnis der Delphine Ramel

Ingres painted this portrait of Delphine Ramel in 1859, when he was 79 years old. She was his second wife; he had married her in 1852, a few years after the death of his first wife had left him grief-stricken and barely able to work, and this marriage steadied his last decade. By now Ingres was the grand old man of French painting, and he lavished on her the same care he gave any great commission, the cool sheen of the dark silk dress, the rings on her fingers, the exact fall of the lace and the weight of the gold bracelet. Her steady, faintly guarded gaze is entirely his own doing. He went on painting almost to the day he died, eight years after finishing this.