Marcotte d’Argenteuil

In 1810 Rome was a French city, at least on paper. Napoleon had annexed the old Papal States the year before and carried the pope off to France, filling the offices with his own administrators. Charles Marcotte was one of them, a young inspector of waters and forests posted to the Roman department, and Ingres was a French painter stranded in Rome after his state scholarship ran out, keeping himself afloat with portraits. The two were close in age and became lifelong friends. Ingres gives Marcotte a plain grey background and a severe, closed expression, the polished blue coat and the exact line of the collar drawn with the cool precision he was already known for. Marcotte commissioned the portrait as a present for his mother.