Joan of Arc at the Coronation of Charles VII

Joan of Arc would not be made a saint until 1920, yet here Ingres gives her a halo, the first time a French painter had. He finished the picture in 1854, at 74, from a state commission he had been sitting on for years. The scene is Reims Cathedral on 17 July 1429, just after Charles VII has been crowned, the coronation Joan had pushed for, believing heaven had handed France its victory. She stands in armour beside the altar, one hand resting on it, her eyes turned upward. Ingres built the figure with the hard, polished finish of his teacher David crossed with a taste for medieval detail. It came as 19th-century France was rediscovering Joan as a national heroine, decades before Rome agreed.