Profile of Raphael and Hands of Apelles, Raphael and Racine, Studies for The Apotheosis of Homer

The small scroll at the lower left carries three words, Phèdre, Athalie and Esther. They are tragedies by Jean Racine, the French playwright of the 17th century, and the hand holding the scroll is meant to be his. Ingres painted this canvas in 1826 or 1827 while preparing The Apotheosis of Homer, his crowded picture of poets and artists gathered around the enthroned Homer, shown at the Salon of 1827. The young man in profile is Raphael, the painter Ingres admired above all others. In the finished work Apelles, the most famous painter of ancient Greece, leads Raphael by the hand, and that grip is rehearsed here in the arm reaching down from the top edge. The study once belonged to Edgar Degas, who collected Ingres, and the Louvre bought it at auction in 1929.