Portrait of Madame Gonse

By 1852 Ingres was past 70 and the reigning grand old man of French painting. This picture, though, is a private thing, a portrait of a friend. The sitter, Josephine Gonse, was the daughter of an old friend of his from Rouen and had herself been his pupil, and he painted her the way he painted people he was fond of, lavishing care on the silk, the jewels and the velvet chair. He gave her the pose he returned to again and again, seated with her chin resting on her hand. Montauban, the town where Ingres was born and which now keeps much of his work, is fond enough of this canvas to call it their Mona Lisa.