Edme Bochet

Ingres was living in Rome in 1811, a young French painter on a state scholarship, when he painted this portrait of Edme Bochet, a fellow Frenchman working there for Napoleon's administration. It is an oval, which is unusual. Ingres painted plenty of women in this rounded frame but only ever gave one man the same treatment, and this is it. The reason is a family one. The picture was made as a companion to his portrait of Bochet's sister Cecile, so that brother and sister could hang as a matched pair. Ingres draws the face with his cool, exact line, every feature firmly set, the collar and dark coat kept plain. The two ovals were parted for a time and now hang together again in the same museum in Paris.