Ingres's appealing drawing presents the daughters of Austria's ambassador to Rome, Prince Wenzel von Kaunitz-Rietberg. The young women, aged thirteen to seventeen, are shown in the discreet luxury of Empire fashion in a setting that suggests their privileged, cultured world. They cluster about a piano, probably in the family music room where Paganini gave a recital in 1819, just a year after the sitting. In fact, as Hans Naef suggests, it may have been Ingres's passion for music and his mastery of the violin that won him an invitation to the Kaunitz residence.

Although, in 1818, Ingres was not widely known as an artist, he was clearly at the height of his form as a graphic portraitist. The precise subtlety of his draftsmanship, his almost musical distribution of accents, and the delicacy of his depiction of youth are exquisite. Such a portrait might have helped to secure titled husbands for all three daughters, despite their father's philandering, which brought him judicial review in Vienna in 1822 and, ultimately, exile.

The Museum's rich collection of works by Ingres now totals eighteen drawings, twelve of which are portraits. This, however, is our first and only group sitting, a challenging (and more costly) form for which Ingres only rarely received commissions.