Portrait of Auguste François Talma

The young man with the tumble of dark curls was the nephew of François-Joseph Talma, the most celebrated tragic actor in Napoleonic Paris. Auguste François, who used his uncle's name, trained for a while in David's studio, where he met Ingres, and then chose the navy over painting. He was killed in February 1812 in a sea fight off Venice aboard the French warship Rivoli, still in his twenties. Ingres listed a portrait of him in his own notebooks, first as Talma nephew and later as young Talma, and this canvas went through the actor's estate sale in 1827. Even so, some scholars have doubted that Ingres painted it, and the signature at the upper right may have been added by another hand. The Louvre, which received it as a gift in 1965, catalogues it under his name.