Madame Jacques-Louis Leblanc (Françoise Poncelle, 1788–1839)

Ingres painted this in Florence in 1823, during years when he was living abroad and far from the fame he wanted back in Paris. The Leblancs, a French couple he met in Italy, sat for a pair of portraits, this one of Francoise Leblanc and a matching one of her husband. Ingres lingers over the black dress, the gold chains, the unhurried way her hands settle in her lap. The pair had a remarkable second life. Decades later the painter Edgar Degas came across them, bought both in 1896, and called it the event of his life as a collector. When Degas died and his own collection was sold off, the Metropolitan Museum bought these two portraits out of that sale in 1918.