Detail of Madame Paul-Sigisbert Moitessier, née Marie-Clotilde-Inès
de Foucauld, Seated |  | Ingres,
who first refused to paint Madame Moitessier's portrait, was so struck by her
beauty when they met that he changed his mind. In June 1847, the critic Théophile
Gautier reported on Ingres's initial attempts at the likeness: "Already the head
lives. A hand of superhuman beauty presses against the temple and bathes a violently
disjointed finger in the waves of hair . . . ." Gautier later compared the sitter's
hand, with its splayed fingers, to a starfish. | |
