Studies for The Apotheosis of Homer

Four hands share this small canvas, and each was painted as a separate study before the pieces were set together on one support. They belong to The Apotheosis of Homer, the large picture Ingres showed at the Salon of 1827, and the Louvre identifies them as the hands of three writers from three different ages. Virgil, the poet of ancient Rome. Euripides, the tragedian of classical Athens. And Pierre Corneille, the French dramatist of the 17th century. In the finished picture all three stand in the crowd gathered around the enthroned Homer. Ingres built big compositions like this one piece at a time, working out a wrist or a grip on its own long before it went onto the final canvas. Two of the hands here close around a rolled scroll, the plain sign of an author. The canvas came to the Louvre in 1925, a gift from the collector Baron Joseph Vitta.