ジャック=ルイ・ルブラン夫人(フランソワーズ・ポンセル、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.