La fonte

Ingres started this standing nude around 1820, then set it aside and did not finish it until 1856, when he was in his mid-seventies. Nearly four decades sat between the first idea and the signature. By the end he needed help from two of his pupils to complete the large canvas, which was normal practice for a picture this size. The young woman holds a jar tipped so that water spills out, the source of a stream, and Ingres gives her the smooth, cool stillness of carved marble rather than warm flesh. She stands in her narrow upright format like a statue set into a niche. For a painter who had spent his whole career defending clean line and classical calm against the newer, looser Romantic style, this late figure reads almost like a summary of everything he believed a body should look like.