O noivado de Rafael com a sobrinha do cardeal Bibbiena

Ingres painted this small, jewel-like scene in Rome around 1813, while Napoleon's empire still governed the city. He was living on portrait commissions and privately devoted to one hero above all, Raphael, dead almost 300 years. Here he imagines a moment from Raphael's life, Cardinal Bibbiena offering his niece to the young painter in marriage, a match Raphael reportedly kept putting off. Ingres worked almost like a detective, building each face from a real Renaissance source. Raphael's features come from a portrait then believed to be his self-portrait, the cardinal's from a likeness Raphael himself had painted. This taste for tender, closely researched episodes from the lives of old masters was a small fashion of the moment, later nicknamed the troubadour style. The betrothal never became a wedding, since Raphael died before marrying at all.